Lords try to wreck Civil Partnership Bill

A wrecking amendment to the Civil Partnership Bill in the House of Lords today, brought this reaction from the Revd Richard Kirker, general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement:

"The government defeat on the Civil Partnership Bill is not surprising. It was always unsafe to trust the quirky nature of the second chamber with such important legislation. 

"We remain very uncertain at the exclusion of heterosexual couples from Civil Partnerships, Lord Lester's earlier Bill was much fairer, and so much less prone to this type of homophobic attack.

"We remain deeply disturbed by the denial of the right to faith communities to host Civil Partnerships. The Bill is aggressively secular and singularly lacking in words to express the real purpose of the contract. 

"In the end the government has fallen victim to its own unwillingness to treat lesbian and gay couples equally, and so the Bill became vulnerable to anti-gay manipulation. It is at best a poor offering and while we are sure the government will get back on course in the Commons, we are hardly inspired by its content, or their performance.

"Civil Partnership, and marriage should be made available to all, as they choose. It is a mistake to try and push homosexual relationships into a newly created legal ghetto.

"We also believe there should be adequate legal protection for carers, though we note many Peers supported their just cause as a cynical ploy to see this Bill made unworkable"

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