Hats off to Labour tonight. They’ve seen through @timloughton‘s wrecking amendment and put the gay marriage reform before politics.
— Tim Montgomerie (@TimMontgomerie) May 20, 2013
The cynical wrecking amendment has gone down in flames – by 375 votes to 70. It’s a fascinating insight into the opposition to marriage equality on the far right. A conservative – yes, a conservative – was proposing to extend civil partnerships, i.e.e marriage-lite, to heterosexual couples rather than allow gay couples to be married. Such civil partnerships, if extended to everyone, as in France, would do much much more to undermine the institution of civil marriage than allowing gays to participate in the institution. It’s pretty obvious evidence that bigotry was behind this – a betrayal of core conservative principles in order to prevent gay equality.
The Dish 