Same-sex marriage bill would cruise through Commons
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By Julian Mann
If a bill to legalise same-sex marriage were announced in the 2013 Queen's Speech, it would cruise through the House of Commons with a comfortable majority.
An alliance of Cameronite Conservatives, Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats would see the bill home with, Cranmer’s Curate estimates, at least 500 out of 650 MPs in favour.
The main opposition would come from the Cornerstone group of around 40 Conservative MPs. Cornerstone, which includes some real characters in the best tradition of independent-minded British Conservativism such as Edward Leigh, Adam Holloway, Nadine Dorries and Philip Davies, declares that it stands for:
the Monarchy; traditional marriage; family and community duties; proper pride in our nation’s distinctive qualities; quality of life over soulless utility; social responsibility over personal selfishness; social justice as civic duty, not state dependency; compassion for those in need; reducing government waste; lower taxation and deregulation; our ancient liberties against politically correct censorship and a commitment to our democratically elected parliament.
So its MPs can be relied on to stage a valiant action against this abomination.
But numerically they cannot succeed. Your curate estimates an additional 40 Conservative MPs out of the parliamentary party of 305 would join them on a free vote. On a whipped vote, cc believes they would be lucky to get half that. The remaining opposition would come from the Democratic Unionists (8 MPs) and some Roman Catholic Labour members.
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