Gerald Howarth
Main Page: Gerald Howarth (Conservative - Aldershot)
Maria Miller
The spirit of our debate today has been one of trying to find a way to ensure that we can provide protection for religious belief. I urge the hon. Lady to think about that carefully, because in the context of the provision of our quadruple lock it is important that we provide for that change in the Equality Act if we are to give the certainty that, as other hon. Members have highlighted, is so important.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend accept that the great majority of people in this country—62% according to ComRes—regard marriage as being between a man and a woman, a situation that has persisted for centuries; that neither she nor the Prime Minister, and neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition, has any mandate whatsoever to inflict this massive social and cultural change on our country; that the consultation exercise has been a complete sham; and that the Government had made up their mind in advance what outcome they wanted and failed to take into account the 600,000 people who signed the Coalition for Marriage petition?
Maria Miller
I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend and neighbour in Hampshire that we have absolutely looked not only at the consultation responses but at the petitions we have been given, although they are not part of the consultation response because they were not part of the consultation. It is important that we consider both sides of the debate, understand the strength of feeling and make provisions for people’s religious beliefs. I do not ever want to try to trade statistics in this place, because the subject we are dealing with is even more important than that. It concerns respect for people’s differences, and we have an obligation to ensure that those differences can be protected in law.