You have to remember why incest is illegal, it's not just because the other person is your sister, it's because of the high incidence of birth defects that result from such unions.
In incest there may be third-party victims (the offspring), whereas same-sex marriage doesn't give rise to third-party victims.
I would have thought that was obvious, it merely demonstrates how thick or disingenuous that Tory MP is.

It was interesting yesterday, watching the debate, how all the people against looked like haggered dinosaurs from a long gone age that we could really do with bouncing out of Parliament (on all 3 sides), no doubt "the other place", which has even more dinosaurs in it will do their best to block this.

maybe it's time for a maximum age for voters as well as a minimum???

"morally wrong" what can be "morally wrong" with equality?

They still haven't moved on from thinking that mean that sex between a couple of the same sex is morally wrong.
Hence marriage between those of the same sex would be immoral.

Goodness knows what they think of opposite-sex marriages where, say, oral sex occurs.

No, unsurprisingly, you are not reading it right. Unsurprising because you consistently struggle with basic comprehension. Blindly believing what is written in an outdated book is not a legitimate viewpoint and is most certainly not "life experience". This has nothing to do with experience, it's to do with equality. That same outdated book/religion has consistently stated over centuries that women are inferior to men. Fortunately we've moved on a little bit over the centuries and most people can now see the Bible and religion as what it is supposed to be. Which is to take the Bible stories as a basis to lead a good life, not a set of hard and fast rules and regulations. Plus your father or anyone else who doesn't like the idea of same-sex marriage can very easily avoid it by not marrying someone of the same sex.

Since you seem so worked up by this, what is your objection to equality?

As for the idiot thing, this from the person who thinks minimum-wage carers have an expense account, has 9 family members fraudulently claiming benefits while running a drugs empire, thinks £71 a week is too much to live on, and thinks jobseekers can just as easily find a job without a car or decent clothing. I think you should go back to your 'real world' Sal, you might be happier there.

He makes some excellent points about the equality problems with the bill. I'm not convinced by his 'freedom of conscience' arguments but at least they're expressed rationally.

You seem to have got a real rarity there - an MP with both a brain and a conscience. Doubt his career will go far.

Exactly. 100%.

Your father is a bigot.

If Mulholland agreed with the basis of the legislation, i.e. that homosexual people should have the right to marry, why not vote 'aye', then set about seeking amendments that would eradicate what he perceives as the bill's weaknesses? Perhaps he was using those weaknesses as an excuse, in a bid to lose as few votes as possible.

Fair point, these are not religious ceremonies.
I'm changing my mind on that one.


I need to read-up on this.

Spot on.

And I'd say the same for doctors/pharmacists and so forth too.



Agree there too.

Sal Paradisetheir[/i individual religious beliefs.

This is an area where the lack of separation of church and state blurs some lines. Ideas/beliefs that were once entirely widespread as a way of understanding the world are no longer so – certainly not in most of the West (the US is an exception).

But most of us would want law to be made, as much as possible, on the grounds of logic and fact. And whatever the merits or otherwise of religious faith, it cannot, by its very nature, do that.

So there's that – and then there's the issue, already raised here, of the pick 'n' mix nature of much religious belief. For some Christians to claim that the [iBible[/i condemns homosexuality is, at best a very naive approach. The [iBible[/i condemns many things – and, in effect, says that others are acceptable. The latter includes the rape of children.

Yet taking the most important part of the word 'Christian', Christ is not reported, in the [iBible[/i, as ever commenting on human sexuality. So those Christians who do try to claim a [iBiblical[/i objection to homosexuality have to rely on [iLeviticus[/i and Paul.

In the case of the former, it is staggeringly selective to pick that from a book that contains countless things that even the most fundamental fundamentalist would not consider acceptable today. And in the case of the latter, it's also often selective too and ignores that Paul was (as even my father, an evangelical clergyman would out it) "a typical convert" (ie fanatical).

Few people today would expect, for instance, that no woman could have any teaching role within her church (that would include Sunday School etc), let alone that no woman should enter her church without her head being covered (which is interesting if we think of ideas of women covering their heads/faces in certain Catholic countries, at least at some times, and also attitudes of some Muslims to the same question. But that would need another thread 2.3125:5