Gay Marriage Gets Ministerial Backing

In the face of continuing criticism and opposition from the Conservative Party and the Church of England, ministers have pledged to push through legislation to give same-sex couples equal rights to get married.

After it emerged that the Home Office has had more than 100,000 responses to its consultation, a petition against gay marriage has been signed by more than half a million people, and a poll by leading gay rights group Stonewall showed that four out of five people under 50 support the move to legalise gay marriage, one of the government's few openly gay minsters appealed for more "calm" in the debate and for supporters of the move to show respect for opponents.

Greg Barker, the Conservative climate minister, said: "What's important is, given how much the world has moved on in a good way in mainstreaming relationships [between gay couples] and how much acceptance there has been, we must now make sure this debate doesn't polarise opinion again and it's conducted in a civil and calm way, and we don't project the worst views of our opponents onto everyone who disagrees with us."

Increasing its opposition Anglican declared that the government proposal could make the church stop carrying out legal weddings, and take a fundamental step towards separating the church and state.

A Downing Street spokesman said the government was "committed to legislate by 2015 – in this parliament". He also said that the proposal set out in the consultation was "very clear that no religious organisation will be forced to conduct same-sex marriages". In fact the consultation goes further, saying: "It will not be legally possible under these proposals for religious organisations to solemnise religious marriages for same-sex couples."

The spokesman said government lawyers were confident that legislation could be drawn up to protect the church against a legal challenge on equality rights for refusing to carry out gay marriages. However some MPs with a legal background expressed concern that this might not be possible.

(H)