An Equal Music

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1. 1
   

   Acolyte of Sagan

   February 6, 2013 at 4:50 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment

   I’ve just left a post at the always excellent http://www.jesusandmo.net , partly on this very subject, so I’ll simply cross-post the relevant piece.

   On a side note, I see that Parliament today passed the bill to legalise same-sex marriage (and, more importantly, I feel, recognise it as a marriage), yet the world hasn’t come screeching to a halt, nor blown itself to smithereens, and as yet no homonazi* has been at my door to inform me that I must divorce my wife and marry another bloke. So it would appear that all the fuss was for nothing really.

   *I’ve just coined that term (unless anybody knows better). And before I’m jumped on for it (no pun intended) let me explain. It’s sarcasm, a play on the ‘straw feminist’ feminazi slur that’s increasingly being aimed at people like Ophelia Benson, Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers (and there’s a picture you don’t want in your head; PZ in kinky Nazi leathers), and anybody else speaking up on feminist issues. I’m just surprised that none of the vitriolic homophobes opposing the bill didn’t come up with it first. If, however, anybody does see the word used by the homophobic crowd in the future, please refer them to this post of mine, where they will see that the word homonazi was coined by me as an example of the stupidity that seems to infest the minds of the irrational, the bigotted, and the ignorant, and that use of the word in any context other than the one in which I use it here marks the user out as all of the above.

2. 2
   

   left0ver1under

   February 6, 2013 at 7:17 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment

   Four hundred out of 650 voting for it (74 absent or abstaining) means many of the two largest parties (Labour and Conservatives) had most members voting for it, and judging by Avicenna’s comment, the third largest also voted heavily for it.

   See, folks, this is what happens when you have a multiparty democracy and minority governments. Parties have more impetus to act in the interests of the public, to listen to the voters

3. 3
   

   bradleybetts

   February 6, 2013 at 6:40 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment

   I thought it was 400 to 160? That’s what the news said, I assume there were a few abstaining. Of course there was the usual tripe from some of the Tory backbenchers about the “Orwellian redefinition of marriage” and how “Marriage is between a man and a woman” which nearly made my head explode, but we got through it

   I am genuinely proud of my country today. Yippee!

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   AsqJames

   February 6, 2013 at 8:16 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment

   It was indeed 400 to 175 (Hansard has the full debate with the vote totals on the 4th page).

   I was expecting the “Orwellian redefinition of marriage” etc, what i was not expecting was for the “no” camp to simultaneously argue that this bill was a waste of parliamentary time when there are more important issues to address and that the issue was of such importance the debate should not be limited to only one day. How’s that for cranial fragmentation inducement?

   Interestingly the Hansard record shows MPs on both sides who were dissatisfied with the limitations of the bill., in particular that it didn’t take the opportunity to extend Civil Partnerships to heterosexual couples. Less encouragingly, it also shows how fundamentally entwined the UK church & state still are – did you know there was a “Second Church Etates Commissioner”? Which role is described as:

   The Second Church Estates Commissioner provides an important link between Government and the established Church and whilst the position exists to maintain the statutory accountability of the Church Commissioners to Parliament, the position has evolved over the time of successive Second Commissioners to seek to provide a link between Government and Parliament on the one hand and the established Church on the other.

   The Second Commissioner answers oral and written questions from MPs about Church of England matters, is a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee and steers Church of England legislation through the House of Commons.

   He or she is required to be a confirmed lay member of the Church of England and is by convention an MP from the governing political party. The post is a Crown appointment, made on the advice of the Prime Minister and whilst it is honorary and unpaid, the position of Second Church Estates Commissioner is included in the published list of Government members.

   The Second Church Estates Commissioner is also an ex-officio member of the Church of England’s General Synod.