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Gay MP attacks same-sex marriage
Ben Bradshaw says Britain’s gay community does not need the word ‘marriage’
One of Britain’s first openly gay MPs, Ben Bradshaw, has attacked the government’s plans to legalise same-sex marriage.
A former Labour minister, Bradshaw said the gay community does not need the word ‘marriage’ to have equal rights.
He defended these words today (6 April) on Twitter by stating the fight for marriage equality was just ‘semantics’.
Bradshaw told The Washington Post: ‘This is more of David Cameron trying to drag the Conservatives kicking and screaming into the modern world.
‘Of course, we’ll support it, but this is pure politics on their part. This isn’t a priority for the gay community, which already won equal rights with civil partnerships.’
His comments come after 400,000 people have signed the Coalition for Marriage, a petition demanding the definition of marriage is kept as between a man and a woman.
Civil partnerships were legalised in 2005 giving gay couples the same rights as straight couples, but critics such as gay rights activist Peter Tatchall has called such a law similar to apartheid.
Bradshaw, who is in a civil partnership, attacked the media in 2009 for not describing his relationship on equal terms with the Prime Minister’s marriage.
He said: ‘They have also referred to my partner as my boyfriend - did they refer to Samantha Cameron as David Cameron's girlfriend?
‘All partners have shared income rights. The implication is gay people in civil partnerships are not equal.’
Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has said the distinction between gay and opposite sex couples may perpetuate misconceptions and discrimination.
She said: 'We recognize that the personal commitment made by same-sex couples when they enter into a civil partnership is no different to the commitment made by opposite-sex couples when they enter into a marriage.’
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Comments
If civil partnerships are equal to marriage why segregate them under a different name. He's absolutely wrong regarding the equality of a civil partnership as identical to marriage. Indeed they are not. There is no divorce, only dissolution of the contract, no exchange of marriage vows, no mandatory wedding ring for at least one of the partners and there is a huge discrepancy in the area of pensions that differ from those in marriages. He can call it semantics all he wants, he's wrong. There are only two countries with civil partnerships, the UK and Ireland and even the latter does not have all of the rights conferred by the British version. These unions are not the universal standard for gay couples and never will be. There is little portability outside the UK with reciprocal identical rights. Take the French version, PACs, available to both orientations which contain fewer than half the rights of a British civil partnership. If Bradshaw were to live in France, he'd be singing a different tune. His remarks are destructive, hurtful and not helpful for equal marriage equality in the UK. He should be held accountable, retract his statement and apologise for his ill-timed remarks. What he has done has given another victory to the Coalition for Marriage, arguably a hate group, comparable to the National Organisation for Marriage in the United States. His mockery of the government is despicable and unwarranted and he has now alienated himself from the overwhelming majority of supporters in the gay community and beyond. He is clearly not one of us, in fact, our enemy.
The idea that the differences between civil partnerships and marriage are just "semantic" and not of much importance is endemic. But it's wrong.
There are plenty of differences, especially with regards to transgender rights, that make a mockery of Bradshaw's argument. He's words are thoughtless, ill-timed as they are during a debate in which the bigots are using every such comment against marriage equality, and selfish.
He does not speak for any community, he speaks only for himself.
Ben Bradshaw or those self appointed Mr Speakers does not speak for me, or anyone else other than himself