House of Commons to vote on immoral homosexual marriage
WESTMINSTER, May 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-family campaigners are asking UK citizens to contact their MPs to ask that so that David Cameron's gay “marriage” bill be defeated. Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children told LifeSiteNews.com that the bill, which goes to a vote on third reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday, is considered likely to pass.
On Monday, a series of amendments will be proposed for a vote by MPs, among which will be a call to defer the entire process until 2015 and put it to a public referendum.
Another will call for heterosexual couples to be included in existing civil partnership provisions.
But Ozimic said that SPUC has no position on any of these, and are concentrating on defeating the bill as a whole.
The bill has been in committee since being brought forward and receiving a tentative go ahead by an overwhelming majority of MPs of all parties.
It is scheduled to go to a vote about 7 pm UK time Tuesday evening, after which it will be taken to the House of Lords where the committee process will be repeated. The Lords are scheduled to vote on the bill “in principle” on June 2 after which it will go to committee.
Ozimic said the bill is “considerably less popular in the Lords” than it was in the Commons and already a senior member of the Upper House has said he will move to dismiss it at the first vote.
Former HM Inspector of Constabulary, Lord Geoffrey James Dear, announced today that he will attempt to defeat the bill before the committee stage. The retired police officer has previously defeated government bills in the House of Lords over freedom of speech and a law that allowed 42-day detention without charge.
Lord Dear said, “When the executive is clearly acting with no democratic mandate and without regard to the proper constitutional processes the Lords have the authority to vote down a Government Bill.”
Lord Dear called the process used by the coalition government to bring the bill to this stage “a sham” and an exercise in “raw power.”
“The political parties have no mandate from the public to bring it forward: the redefinition of marriage was not included in any party manifesto,” he said. “The official consultation process massaged the results to downplay opposition and has been widely dismissed as a sham.”
He added, “The House of Commons process has been marked by guillotined debates and undue pressure from party hierarchies on individual Mps.”
Ozimic expressed hope at the initiative, saying, “It’s not the usual practice,” for the Lords to attempt to defeat a bill outright.
“When the government puts forward a bill, the convention is not to vote on the bill as such, or against it at 2nd reading, but to let it go through to the committee for more mature consideration.”
He called it “quite a sign that there is strong opposition to it in the Lords.”
Contact:
For help in contacting your MP email SPUC at
political@spuc.org.uk
