Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Alli Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alli]

My Lords, gay men and women have waited for far too long to have the same rights as straight married couples—the right to say, “Not tonight dear, I have a headache”, or, “You don’t look fat in that dress”, the right to tell all those wonderful mother-in-law jokes, and even, in the case of the noble Baroness on the government Front Bench, the right to marry George Clooney.

Before I move to the substance of my speech, I want to pay tribute to two Prime Ministers. I start with my right honourable friend Tony Blair. It is his unstinting commitment to equality, taking us from the unequal age of consent through same-sex couple adoptions, the repeal of Section 28 and civil partnerships, that has made it possible for us to be here today. I also want to pay tribute to the Prime Minister. Change requires personal courage and, on this issue, there can be no doubt that David Cameron has shown a huge amount of that. I also pay tribute to the others in the Conservative Party who have joined us on these and the Liberal Democrat Benches in our fight for equality. The vote in the other place was a source of real pride—to see so many MPs, and particularly so many Conservative MPs, add their voices to ours in a free vote—and I hope that we will see the same again today.

The Bill is not about the right of one group against the rights of another. It is about love. It is about who we love and about how we express that love between one another. Marriage is not a contract based on property. It does not belong to one group of people or one group of religious organisations. It is not a contract that is based on financial advantage or disadvantage. It is a contract of love and commitment.

Some of those who have opposed this Bill have spoken passionately on the basis of deeply held religious views. I am sincerely glad that the Government have listened to their concerns and put watertight protections into the Bill. However, the Bill is equally designed to allow those religious organisations that want to marry same-sex couples to do so: the Quakers, the Liberal Jews, the Unitarian Church.

Many to whom I have spoken in the Church of England have argued that allowing same-sex couples to marry would risk the breakdown of the Anglican communion—the African churches would pull away. Last week in Nigeria, a law was passed prohibiting gay marriage and banning gay organisations with a 14-year prison sentence for anyone who advocates gay marriage—that is, people like me making arguments like these. The church should not be opposing same-sex marriage because of the African churches; the church should be supporting it because of African churches.

I want them to show the same leadership that they have shown on issues such as tackling debt and poverty. That is a fight well worth fighting. If the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and others on the Benches Spiritual support civil partnerships, then I, like many gay people, wait with bated breath for the liturgy to allow civil partnerships to be blessed in churches. They have talked the talk; it is now time to walk the walk.

There are also those who say, “We don’t understand why you want marriage. Civil partnership is different but equal”. It is an understandable question. However, it is an emotional response. To find the answer, they need only to have listened to those powerful speeches of their noble friends on their own Benches: the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lords, Lord Black of Brentwood, Lord Smith of Finsbury and Lord Browne of Madingley, yesterday. Different, in this context, is not equal. Different is different and equal is equal.

There are also those who oppose the Bill because they just do not want change. They have by and large opposed every change in equality over the past 15 years. They are the people who campaigned for Section 28, and I heard echoes of it again last night as they spun the lie that teachers will be made to promote gay marriage. They are the people who campaigned against same-sex couple adoptions, regardless of the interest of the child. They are the people who campaigned against civil partnership but find no problem with it now. For them, no argument will suffice.

That brings me neatly to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dear. I am sure there are many like me who believe that this amendment is wrong in principle. It does not uphold the best traditions of this House in spirit or in the manner in which it has been managed. However, the noble Lord has put his amendment down, so vote we must. I hope that today we will demonstrate to those who seek to wreck the Bill that they will fail. I ask noble Lords to vote for the Bill because everyone deserves the right to have their love recognised equally by the state and because religious organisations should have the right to marry same-sex couples, but not the obligation to do so. I hope that noble Lords vote against the amendment because it is the right and decent thing to do.