Same-Sex Marriage

The Pink Paper is really trying to regain the imitative and challenge the online dominance of Pink News by breaking stories. In another move, they revealed late this week that Stonewall now supports gay marriage. It's rather depressing that the apparently leading gay rights campaign organisation supporting same-sex marriage is a news story. In a statement, Stonewall explained their position in the following terms:

"We seek to secure marriage for gay people as a civil vehicle on the same basis as heterosexual marriage, available in a registry office but without a mandate on religious organisations to celebrate it.

"We seek to retain civil partnerships for lesbian and gay people recognising their special and unique status."

Outrage! welcomed the statement, issuing their own quote from Peter Tatchell who said: “This is good news, at last. Thanks to everyone who lobbied Stonewall to change its policy.

“We are pleased that Stonewall has finally joined other LGBT organisations in seeking to overturn the homophobic ban on same-sex civil marriage. We can now move forward together, united in our commitment to marriage equality.

“It is, however, very disappointing that Stonewall is still refusing to oppose the ban on heterosexual civil partnerships. This stance is de facto support for discrimination. It looks uncaring and sectarian. It doesn’t help build the LGBT-straight alliance that we need to win full equality.

“OutRage! is pressing ahead with its Equal Love campaign. Our aim is to end sexual orientation discrimination in both civil marriage and civil partnership law. We oppose the ban on heterosexual civil partnerships just as strongly as we oppose the ban on gay civil marriage.”

Meanwhile, Moscow, whose ban on gay pride events was recently ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to be a breach of human rights law found itself hosting an anti-gay rights rally. 1000 protesters apparently turned out to oppose the decision. Read the story here.

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