Email from Sir Roger Gale MP - URGENT PRESS RELEASE

Quite uncanny to find myself having written something very similar to Roger by way of example the other day.  Ah, well, it's the issue that counts. Just wish that Roger would agree with me and many of his constituents regarding the issue that up for debate; that of Equal Marriage.

Here's Roger's Press Release of today:

Same Sex Marriage – Local Press "Report"

North Thanet`s MP, Sir Roger Gale, has this (Friday) morning issued the following statement:

"I do not read or, with good reason, write for, The Isle of Thanet Gazette.

My attention has, however been drawn, by a local newsagent, to articles purporting to offer my view, and comment upon, same-sex marriage.

At the risk of spoiling "a good story" but in the interest of fact the basis of the report, which I was not invited to comment upon, suggesting that "Sir Roger Gale suggested that same-sex marriage would pave the way for incest" is what is known in journalism as "a lie".

During the Commons debate, which I have to assume the author of the Gazette report has clearly not studied, I made the proposal that Civil marriages and the Civil Partnership should both be abolished to be replaced with a "Civil Union" open to all who did not want to enter into a faith marriage in church.  This Union would, in addition to heterosexual and gay couples, certainly also include siblings (brothers and sisters for the benefit of the IOTG Editor) who are at present not afforded the protection in law and in property rights from Civil Partnership because the last Labour Government specifically excluded this small group of people from the provisions of the Act.  This is called "equality". It means that people who have lived together as, for example, spinster sisters for very many years would no longer face the fear of having to sell the roof from over their heads in order to pay inheritance tax when one "partner" dies.  I appreciate that certain sections of the Press find this disappointing but it has nothing whatsoever to do with sex, or incest, at all.

My proposal for the separation of State and Church in the matter of civil union and what is generally understood as marriage as between one man and one woman would, I believe, remove government from an arena in which it ought not to seek to interfere while at the same time creating genuine equality as between all of those whose partnerships need to be properly registered and recorded in law.

A former Labour Minister, a member of the Civil Partnerships Bill Committee that I chaired, has sought to misrepresent my constructive proposals as "comparing gay marriage to incest".  The irony is that it was that Member of Parliament and his colleagues who denied the very equality to siblings that I am seeking, fairly to achieve – a fact that is slowly dawning upon those who have chosen to leap to incorrect conclusions while finding much favour with those whose lives have been blighted by exclusion from the Civil Partnershps Act and who got the message immediately."

Equal Marriage - The Ayes Have It - But what was Sir Roger Gale MP really saying?

I was interested to see what my MP, Sir Roger Gale  had actually said on Monday in the debate on equal marriage. Twitter was full of him having said something about incest. On checking Hansard I see he didn't say that. Actually, he mentioned a type of legal union that I was advocating a few days ago.
Roger is against this. 

I think that in the future, a legal union, a dividing of the legal affairs of individuals who aren't necessarily lovers; perhaps life long companions would be a good thing. Many people now choose to live together, to share friendship who become life long partners.

There was the case in 2008 of two elderly sisters who had lived together their whole lives and who were fighting to be seen as a unit for inheritance tax reasons. Siblings cannot marry or form a Civil Partnership. Initimacy has nothing to do with it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/apr/30/inheritancetax.tax

Prior to civil partnerships being offered to same sex couples, the fate of a surviving partner of same sex couples was a major problem. This is no less a problem for people who are life long companions who for reasons of family relationship cannot marry or join in a civil partnership. 

I strongly disagree with Roger's stance. But the brother sister union he defined in his speech in the Commons on Monday it didn't seem to be incest he was referring to?

"It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin), with whose speech I concur.

I had the privilege of chairing Committee proceedings on the Civil Partnership Bill. As has been said, very clear undertakings were given by the then Government and Opposition that that Bill was not the thin end of the wedge nor a paving Bill for same-sex marriage, but an end in itself to right considerable wrongs in the law. That it did, as the European Court of Human Rights has determined. In those respects, civil partnerships are indistinguishable from what we know as marriage.

When I put that point to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities, she said that no Government could bind another. Of course, she is correct. That kicks the bottom out of every undertaking that she has given. It is abundantly plain to most Conservative Members that the product of this Bill will end up before the courts and before the European Court of Human Rights, and that people of faith will find that faith trampled upon. That, to us, is intolerable.

I understand—I will give way to my right hon. Friend if she wishes to correct me—that the Cabinet paper on this matter was entitled “Redefining Marriage”. It is not possible to redefine marriage. Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. It has been that historically and it remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory—Orwellian almost—for any Government of any political persuasion to try to rewrite the lexicon. It will not do.

A way forward has been suggested, but it has been ignored. I do not subscribe to it myself, but I recognise the merit in the argument. The argument is that if the Government are serious about this measure, they should withdraw the Bill, abolish the Civil Partnership Act 2004, abolish civil marriage and create a civil union Bill that applies to all people, irrespective of their sexuality or relationship. That means that brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters and brothers and sisters would be included as well. That would be a way forward. This is not...

The argument is not mine, but that of an eminent lawyer in this House. Its merit is that it would create what I think the hon. Gentleman wants, which is equality. It would create a level playing field and it would leave marriage and faith to those who understand that marriage means faith and that marriage means the union between a man and a woman and nothing else."

Edited to add I see over at Thanet Life they've added a clarification from Sir Roger himself:

"Sir, 

At the risk of spoiling a good story, your reporter, Michael Deacon's idiotic report that I have put forward a suggestion that "would apply not only to gay people but incestuous relationships" demonstrates, yet again, the infinite capacity of the press to misconstrue a fact. 

Anyone who is conversant with the provisions of the Civil Partnerships Act - and Mr Deacon clearly is not - is aware that that law specifically excludes heterosexuals and siblings ( i.e. and the important distinction of an unmarried or widowed brother and sister, - or two brothers or two sisters - , caring for each other) from the protections in law and property rights afforded to same-sex couples. 

It is in that context that I have proposed the abolition of civil marriage (registry office weddings) and civil partnerships and their replacement with a Civil Union that would be all-embracing, that has nothing to do with incest or sex but would most certainly include siblings and other heterosexual partnerships. This would leave marriage, in its' understood form as between one man and one woman, to faith organisations and would separate state involvement from religious marriage and afford to all the "equality" that I understood to be the order of the day. 

The response that I have received from those disadvantaged by the current exclusion from civil partnerships indicates that this is a proposal that is worthy of serious consideration. 

SIR ROGER GALE MP"

I'm certainly not defending or agreeing with Sir Roger's view on equal marriage. However, I think the seizing on the incest claim is unhelpful. Civil rights for people who live together I think is a worthy cause. Sex doesn't come into it.