Posted on 07/15/2013 11:48:45 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Gay marriage is set to become law after clearing the House of Lords.
The Queen is expected to be asked to give her approval to the Bill—one of the most radical pieces of social legislation of her reign—by the end of this week.
It opens the way for the first legally-recognized same-sex weddings to take place in England and Wales by next summer and brings the centuries-old understanding of marriage as being solely between a man and a woman to an end. …
Baroness Stowell, the Government spokesman who steered the bill through the Lords, told a chamber packed with peers wearing pink carnations, that it was an “historic” achievement. But opponents accused the Government of using a parliamentary “bulldozer” to speed the change through. …
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
And here is the sound of the UK being flushed down the toilet...
they have chosen the toilet so many times...
Isn’t the House of Lords the one that is filled with inbred royalists who do all manner of kinky crap????
Or am I mistaking them for the royal family?
I’m beginning to think Islamic conquest of Britain would improve the place.
This is a symptom of same. Setup for it becoming another Iran or Egypt. No, not an improvement.
Wonder where the world is headed? Doesn't look good for the West. For moral bearings, it appears that the east may be where the next great move of God occurs.
***And the Queen is directly responsible to God, too.***
QE is the titular head of the Church of England and ‘defender of the faith’.
Wonder if she will take a stand. Gay marriage in the monarchy would certainly end the Royal lineage.
****Baroness Stowell, the Government spokesman****
A she/he already??? LOL!!!
I suppose this means the poofters will retire the Tower of London steel rod that they would heat until white-hot and thrust up the bum of gays and traitors, way back when.
Now they, uh, knight them.
No, if it was, this Bill might actually be delayed.
Tony Blair 'reformed' the House of Lords by removing nearly all of the hereditary peers from it. While this may certainly be regarded as desirable on the grounds of democracy, as the idea of people holding political power purely on the basis of their ancestry is rather outdated and anti-democratic, the hereditary Peers overwhelmingly tended to be conservative, with a high proportion of those raised within a traditional Christian background.
The removal of most of the hereditary Peers, meant the House of Lords has become dominated by the Life Peers - people who made Lords on the recommendation of the government of the day for the term of their own life, and who will not hand on any title to their children. These are, to a great extent, chosen by the Prime Minister of the day, and thus a government now has the ability to stack the House of Lords to some extent to help them get their legislation through, and make things more difficult for their opponents for decades to come. While many Life Peers are people who have served Britain well and deserve the accolades and honours that come with that, it's profoundly changed the nature of the House of Lords. More Members of the House of Lords are now Labour (217) than Conservative (209). Liberal Democrat Lords (89) still give the current government more overall Lords than Labor, but as there are about 230 Lords who either affiliate with a minor party, or do not affiliate, that means that the House has changed greatly in political structure since before the Hereditary Peers were removed. In 1999, when the Hereditary Peers were expelled by laws passed by the Blair government about 3% of the Hereditary Peers were Labour, and about 60% were Conservatives. If they were still in the House, the House would be solidly Conservative - that doesn't necessarily mean the Bill would be delayed (and the Lords can only delay Bills) because many British Conservatives are supporting it, but it would have increased the chances.
The Queen can’t block it. It’s not a Constitutional issue, nor one that engages the Reserve Powers, so she has no grounds to do so. The Queen is a Constitutional Monarch, and Parliament has primacy under that Constitution - the Queen can only legitimately refuse assent to a law that exceeds Parliamentary authority.
There are 26 Church of England Bishops who sit in the House of Lords as the Lords Spiritual (other Lords are the Lords Temporal), and it is their role, if they see fit, to try and represent the Church, of which the Queen is Supreme Governor, in the Parliament. They do get to vote, but they represent only 4% of the current Chamber. And they don’t vote very often (they did vote to assist in stopping a Euthanasia Bill from passing the Lords in 2006).
The Queen has no choice but to sign any bill that passes the Commons and the Lords. It has been that way since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The only time a monarch has ever vetoed a bill since then has been in 1708 when Queen Anne refused to sign a bill creating a Scottish Militia, and she only did so because the Government instructed her to.
The gay is seeping over the Channel from Paree.
There are approximately 730 Lords Temporal at the moment. This includes about 640 Life Peers (people created Barons for the term of their own life, who will not pass on any title to their children) and 92 Hereditary Peers of varying rank from Baron to Duke, out of the approximately 800 Hereditary Peers remaining. Most Hereditary Peers were expelled from the House of Lords in 1999 under the reforms of the Blair government, but the terms of those reforms allowed the Hereditary Peers to elect 90 of their number to remain, pending further reforms that may occur in the future. Two Hereditary Peers, the Earl Marshal (Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk) and the Lord Great Chamberlain (David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley) retain their positions because of the Hereditary Offices they hold (the Duke of Norfolk has always been the Earl Marshal since 1672, and even before that all the way back until 1397, the Duke of Norfolk most often held the position), the position of Lord Great Chamberlain is a lot more complicated but is normally the Marquess of Cholmondeley) which are considered necessary to the administration of the Monarchy and have ceremonial duties to carry out in the House of Lords.
There are 26 Lords Spiritual (actually 25 right at the moment as the office of Bishop of Durham is temporarily vacant) who are Church of England Bishops and Archbishops. By convention, in many cases, only one of them votes on an issue (by a roster system), but they are all permitted to vote and on 'moral issues' multiple Lords Spiritual may vote at once (often on different sides).
Your picture didn’t load for me the first time, so I didn’t realise you were making a joke.
The Doctor is not a Lord Temporal, but he was, of course, knighted by Queen Victoria, as Sir Doctor of Tardis - the ‘of Tardis’ would actually imply he might be a Baronet.
That’s okay. Wasn’t much of a joke. ;)
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