Gay marriage: Downing Street pleads with Labour to save bill

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. There's a bit of jockeying for position

A recap:
The current situation is: Heterosexual marriages are allowed. Same sex 'civil partnerships' are allowed - these have most of the same rights and duties that marriages do, but there are a few differences in some situations, such as the length of time of contributions taken into account for a survivor's pension, or recognition by other countries - see the video above.

The Conservative government has put forward a bill to allow same sex marriages. This has the support of the Labour and Lib Dem parties, so almost all the leadership of parties support it; nearly all the Labour and Lib Dem backbench MPs do too, but about half of the Tory backbench MPs don't. So far, the bill has passed all votes. The bill, unamended, would mean heterosexual couples have the option just of marriage; same sex couples would have the choice of marriage or civil partnership. It wouldn't be surprising if some civil partners, who aren't affected by the differences with marriage, opt to stick with it, just to avoid another ceremony and paperwork. Other will change to marriage. I think very few new couples would opt for civil partnership after the bill becomes law.

One of those Tory backbenchers has proposed an amendment, to allow heterosexual couples to have the new option of a civil partnership as well. Desire for this is probably tiny; most people see it as a 'wrecking amendment', since it could mean further investigation before the bill becomes law. There are vague murmurs from the Tory government that it would mean extra cost, but no-one understands that yet (some think they are preparing an excuse to stop the whole bill, if they think too many of their supporters are pissed off at the whole idea of same sex marriage).

While there is no 'official' party way to vote on this bill (it's 'free'), the Labour front bench were saying they'd vote for the amendment. Now, they've said that, instead, they will put forward their own amendment that a review about heterosexual civil partnership should start at once (the bill currently says a review will happen in 5 years). Hopefully, this is a good compromise - it gets the main aim (same sex marriage, as soon as possible), while allowing MPs to say they want to look at the 'completely even' option too - ie everyone can go for marriage or a civil partnership.

It may be worth noting that in France, their version of civil partnership is quite popular with heterosexual couples - I'm not sure of the details, but maybe it requires less commitment, or is easier to dissolve.