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United Kingdom legalizes gay marriage

Nihilego

[color=#95b4d4]ユービーゼロイチ パラサイト[/color]
8,875
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I am interested to hear the say of Her Majesty the Queen on this issue. She is the monarch of the U.K. and, at the same time, the 'Supreme Governor' of the English Church.

The Queen does virtually nothing around here, haha. I can't remember, in my 15 years of having lived in this country, her doing anything of major importance other than bringing in a ton of tourism money. I guess it'd be interesting to hear what she has to say but her opinion probably won't come into this too much.

Anyway - I'd like to bring focus back to what Mr Cat Dog posted earlier;
Mr Cat Dog said:
Just for reference, it hasn't been legalized yet, and still actually has a fair bit to go.

The bill has only been passed by the House of Commons and still needs to be passed by the House of Lords (i.e. the equivalent of a Senate in most other countries). Indeed, because of the heavily Conservative party majority in that house, it will probably have a tougher ride getting through that House. The bill passing in the Commons is certainly an optimistic sign (although, given opinion polls broadly expressing favour in the UK for gay marriage, it would have been a massive shock had it been defeated), and that's something to be proud of, but it's not out of the woods yet.

Anyone know where we stand now?
 

Ivysaur

Grass dinosaur extraordinaire
21,082
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The Queen has no real power of her own- she has de-facto stepped aside from politics and religion alike. The Prime Minister is the leader of the Government and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the Church, and the "Royal Consent" means that the Queen will just sit and nod at everything they decide in her name. So if the Parliament passes a law legalizing same-sex marriage, she'll just say "okay". I doubt she'll even give a personal opinion as it could be understood as "putting pressure on Parliament". And the House of Commons will not allow any Monarch to even enter the building, much less to allow her opinions to interfere.

Anyone know where we stand now?

It has passed the Comitee stage, it will move into the Report stage for last-time amendments and then for a third reading in the Commons. If the law passes again (which, seeing how the second reading went, it's a given), it will go into The Other Place for the same procedure (two readings, comitee, report, last reading), and then back to the Commons for a review of the Lords' proposed amendments. If they don't like them, an extra year will be needed to override them and pass the Commons' version.
 
Last edited:
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It's also much more difficult for a UK Conservative MP to come out supporting the Bill because the party leader has a firmer control on their party as well as their member's careers. But the fact that party leader Cameron and his cabinet voting for the bill and half his party voting against is amazing. Because their careers are now at stake, and it'll be very easy for future party leaders to sideline them for not keeping up with modernizing the party.
 
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