Updated
The Hansard record of the committee proceedings on Monday 24 June starts here, and later continues here. The debate continued until 12.22 am!
The more detailed list showing speakers names is over here.
Three bishops made interventions:
The Bishop of Guildford starting here.
The Bishop of Ripon & Leeds starting here, and later continuing here where he moved Amendment 46B.
The Bishop of Leicester starting here where he moved Amendment 46C.
David Pocklington has published Same Sex Marriage Bill – Committee, 3rd Day Summary.
The text of the bill, as amended by the Committee stage, is now available here, and in PDF format here.
The dates for Report stage were announced previously as 8 and 10 July. The date for Third Reading has now been announced as 15 July.
“We cannot expect those cultural assumptions [about marriage] and norms to change overnight or at the speed at which legislation may emerge.” Bishop of Leicester. I don’t recall the Race Relations Act 1976 allowng little opt outs for people who weren’t quite ready to stop discriminating yet. The Sex Discrimnation Act of 1976 did exactly that, of course, and is why we’re still arguing about women bishops 37 years after it would have been illegal for anyone else to discriminate on grounds of gender. I am quite sure that if exemptions from race legislation had been given to the church… Read more »
Looks like Canada’s General Synod in 2 weeks will have lots to debate with regard to Marriage. There is a resolution coming forward to begin the process of changing the Canadian Church’s marriage Canon.
http://jointassembly.ca/delegates/acc/cc/resolutions/c003
Among the memorials to the forthcoming General Synod
are some from conservative dioceses that oppose changes to the Marriage Canon to include same-sex marriage. Those may be found among the memorials listed in this section.
http://jointassembly.ca/delegates/acc/cc/memorials
Expect the same kind of arguments one has heard from C of E bishops in the Lords.
Regarding Lord MacKay of Clashfern’s observation that “It is important to remember that this Bill is not about gay marriage but same-sex marriage. As I pointed out, and I invited correction—so far I have not been corrected—it includes platonic relations between people of the same sex. Therefore, the idea that sexual relationships are fundamental to it is a mistake.”.. This is already true of straight marriages. There is no bar to marriage if one of the partners is not physically able to have a sexual relationship and there is no bar for asexual people who do not intend to have… Read more »
To add to Erika: there’s the old joke “Is there sex after marriage?”
That is, when speaking of opposite-sex couples, it’s a joke. When we’re speaking of opening marriage to same-sex couples, it suddenly becomes a “problem”. }-/