You claim that repeal was passed only by the casting vote of the Speaker with ‘many’ Labour MPs voting against; a blunt lie, on your part. The Tory leader at that time, Michael Howard, voted against repeal, with his Tory colleagues. Before him, Tory leader William Hague had enforced a three-line whip to defend the clause, after him David Cameron called repeal “deeply unpopular… a fringe agenda”.

If you want the actual numbers, look at http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2003-03-10&number=109 – on 10th March 2003, 301 Labour MPs voted for repeal, 3 against (a shameful 3 too many, but not ‘many’ as your lie stated. But even at that last gasp, when it was clear repeal would happen, 72 Tory MPs voted against repeal (and prior to that, it was more like 120+ Tories at each vote).

It’s shameful that you come on here and post a blunt lie, and you then go on to pretend that Labour has done nothing for gay rights during their time in government. Presumably then you’ve missed the following:
Labour ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives us the protection of the European Court of Human Rights (which the Tories now want to end).
Labour brought in an equal age of consent, against Tory objections.
Labour recognised same-sex partnerships for immigration purposes.
Labour appointed the first openly gay Peer, had the first openly gay cabinet mininster.
Labour ended the witch-hunts of gays in the armed forces and LGBT people can now serve without fear.
Labour made it possible for gays to foster and adopt and for lesbians to access IVF treatment, and for gays to be recognised as joint parents.
Labour gave gay partners the right to succeed to a housing tenancy if their partner died, and gave gay surviving partners the right to claim damages after a fatal accident.
Under Labour, the police have started acting against homophobic crimes instead of victimising gay people, Labour brought in tougher sentences for crimes aggravated by homophobic prejudice, and Labour repeal the Sexual Offences act which was used to trap gay men.
Labour made it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians in the workplace.
Labour introduced Civil partnerships – not perfect in my eyes, but a damn sight more than the nothing we had before and a step towards marriage equality.
Labour’s passed the first Equality Act giving the first ever protection against discrimination in buying goods & services
Labour has created a requirement for government departments to treat us equally which was never there before, and has changed the tenor of government policy from the specifically anti-gay bigotry of the Tory years.

Maybe you missed all that. Maybe you want to claim that none of it matters to you. But please don’t come on here with blunt lies.

The New Labour Party as used the Pink Pound and Pink Vote (about 6%) for their own means to stay in power for so long-

again, if it was not for a few couragious LGB MPs having the bottle to come out, we would still be further behind then now in our rights-

PS i am not a Tory or LibDem voter either, so no sour grapes to Brown only

So anyone who feels New Labour as done anything for LGBT rights dare i say it, pray tell me what–

It’s not that I necessarily want it for myself, but I believe that we should be working towards equality. I never wanted to join the army, but I think it’s a great advance in recent years that gay people can join and not risk a dishonourable discharge, and be treated the same as anyone else, just like I think the age of consent should be identical.

Civil partnerships were a great advance on nothing at all, and equality is often achieved in stages, but I think we should be looking for more steps towards equality – and the proof of the pudding over many years is that labour and LibDems vote for that, Tories vote against.

All we have is a statement from Nick Clegg claiming that he personally supports it (but not so much that he is willing to taint the manifesto with that support).

It is only through dreams that equity is achieved (and I really am far more interested in equity than I am equality).

I still say that ‘gay marriage’ is a false totem and that I see no evidence that there is widespread support for it.

Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I see us as equal; but as someone who believes that marriage should be disestablished and the Civil Partnership should be accessible to all and the only form of union recognised by the state, I don’t see ‘gay marraige’ as a totem.

….just because you don’t know any gay people who don’t want the right to marry, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Where have I said that they don’t exist? Even suggesting that I have said that really shows how desperate you are.

If there was really such strong support for it, don’t you think that gay marriage would be on Stonewall’s list of election demands? Maybe you should ask yourself why it isn’t; because the answer is quite simple: there is no evidence that there is widespread support for it.

Mark No. 19….just because you don’t know any gay people who don’t want the right to marry, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They most certainly do and there are many of them. Not every gay man or woman in the UK posts comments on Pink News either. By your failure to find or seek out people who do want to get married, do you then think they should not be allowed? If NO, then you don’t believe in full equality. Why do you think the number of countries allowing us to marry instead of forming different non-marital unions is slowly growing (8 already) and surpassing the UK, France, Germany, and a few others in the EU? We’re outnumbered and that’s going to continue.

Lib Dems rule! (well no yet – they rock though)

It doesn’t matter how many or what individual gay persons think about gay marriage. What is important here is the issue of equal rights and fairness. The majority of gay persons think this way. They don’t want to be treated as second class citizens.

I really think you should stop imposing your own thoughts on the community as a whole. The simply fact remains that most of the community here in the UK doesn’t even view gay marriage as an equality issue.

According to Stonewall’s voting records, Gordon Brown is within a smidgeon of being as supportive of LGBT issues as Nick Clegg is (despite having far more commitments outside of the country and parliament which would prevent him for turning up for many votes) and exactly the same as Vince Cable’s. It is as near as damn it the same as Simon Hughes’ record, which even Peter Tatchell is at pains to tell us is exemplary.

In fact, there are numerous Liberal Democrat MPs who have far worse records than Gordon Brown does on supporting LGBT issues.

Your lame attempts to portray Gordon Brown as some sort of a homophobic bigot really don’t wash.

http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/stonewall_mp_voting_records_2010_1.pdf

Sorry Dave, but that is the most tortured logic I have seen in many a year. The statement “If not then there is no reason why any LGBT person should vote for Labour” assumes that the LGBT community as a whole wants gay marriage and consider that it is an important factor in considering how to vote .. but there are no hard facts to suggest that most members of the LGBT community in the UK even think that gay marriage is an important totem.