To summarise, the amendment leaves a number of questions unanswered and the Government has recognised these. They have also stated very clearly the fact that this is in their view, not in any sense a human rights or justice issue. The Bill still has to have a third reading in both houses and the amendment may very well fail at that point, or die with the Bill in its entirety if legislation is dumped in advance of the General Election.
One thing is clear though ”“ this is legalised gay marriage in church by the back door and those of us who are Biblically conservative need to be very aware of what is going on. The Bill in its current form is too ambiguous and would arguably permit Church of England clergy to let Civil Partnerships be registered in churches without the permission of their Bishops.
What accounts for few opponents of the amendment and only 2 of the 12 Lords Spiritual being present at 10 pm last night as Lord Alli started to speak on his amendment, notwithstanding the interest of the Church of England? Indeed the chamber was packed with supporters of the amendment. It has led to some jibes in the US, and a rather amusing cartoon from Dave Walker:
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/blog_post.asp?id=90633
The only clue I have found was in the report of the Christian Institute:
“In a rare break with normal procedure announced only yesterday, the political parties agreed to sit late into the night to allow the Bill to receive its entire Report Stage in one day.
This led to Lord Alli’s amendment being reached late last night – when scores of Peers who would have voted against it were not in the House.”
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/homosexual-unions-allowed-in-churches/
Apparently something similar happened during the passage of the Civil Partnership Act. The person charged by the government with steering that through was coincidentally … Lord Alli.
The old ones are always the best – they fall for it every time.
And some more stuff about shenanigans here:
http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=1006
It’s honestly hard for me to get worked up about this. If the COE bishops can’t be bothered to show up for the politics then I can only assume it’s not that important to them.
The libs won — and they won because they care more.