Updated Friday evening
The Bill has been carried over to the 2013-14 session. The Bill is due to have its report stage and third reading on 20 and 21 May 2013.
A list of proposed amendments and new clauses has been published.
New copies of the bill and the explanatory notes are published here (the bill has a new serial number).
Updates
And a further amendment here.
David Pocklington has now written at Law & Religion UK about the Redefinition of Marriage – New Clause 9. The whole article, although long, is worth reading.
…MPs David Burrowes, Tim Loughton and Jim Shannon laid the New Clause 9, nine-point amendment on 12 March this year, which calls for a referendum “on the issue of same-sex marriage”. The critical part is the question that is to appear on the ballot papers, viz.
“At present, the law in England and Wales defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Should the law be changed to define marriage as the union of two people—whether a man and a woman, or woman and a woman, or a man and a man?”, [emphasis added].
Thanks Simon for posting these links. The proposed amendments are quite modest. The leaders of the anti-SSM MPs, acting as a group, have tabled a set of amendments calling for greater protection for religious objectors in various roles, including as civil registrars. (The govt will certainly resist the one on registrars). They also table an amendment calling for the act not to be implemented unless a referendum is held first and the people vote Yes.
On the other side, the main amendment is one calling for humanist ceremonies to be recognised, as they are in Scotland.
From the very own lips of those who are opposed to Same Sex Marriage it has been confirmed that the majority of the British Society are not worried about Gay Marriage. Those worried and promoting a hate filled propaganda are the religious fanatics and their politician allies, all of them added together are a tiny minority of the British population. As a British citizen, what I hear people mostly worried about is the Economy and controlling Immigration. If you ask me a migrant , I will tell you that I don’t think Britain is full for anyone to suggest closing… Read more »
Opening civil marriage to same-sex couples does not redefine marriage any more than allowing mixed-race couples to marry did. Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay–as well as 11 states and the District of Columbia in the United States–have already opened marriage to all couples regardless of the legal sex of the spouses. It is time England modernized. To think that England used to lead the world in legal matters.
Gary Paul Gilbert