UK gay ‘marriage’ bill ignores children’s right to a mother and father: campaign group

Date: 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

WESTMINSTER, June 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The needs of children of a father and mother are being ignored in favor of the putative “rights” of homosexuals in the rush to pass the same-sex “marriage” bill, a family campaign group has said. 

The coalition government’s same-sex “marriage” bill is being considered in a committee of the House of Lords started today after being passed “in principle” in an overwhelming vote of 390 – 148 in favor. 

The group called Gay Marriage, No Thanks, an “informal group of professionals and parents,” said today that the bill is entirely “adult focused” and ignores the human right of children to be reared by both natural parents. The group says it aims “to put the wellbeing of children at the centre of the same-sex marriage debate.” 

The group has taken out an ad in the Times addressed to the members of the House of Lords that laid out ten reasons to reject the proposal. Among these are quotes from the UN Convention on Children’s Rights that said children have a human right to be nurtured by both their biological parents. 

The group notes that when same-sex “marriage” laws were passed in Spain, the effect on natural marriage was negative, with marriage rates falling precipitously. The bill’s driving force, they said, has not been “human rights” or the struggle for “equality” but “a militant move to deny gender difference” based on “Queer Theory,” an academic offshoot of radical militant feminism which developed in 1990s. 

Alan Craig, a spokesman for the group, said, “Talk of the rights of adults has dominated debate about the issue, whether those are homosexual rights or religious rights. But what about the rights of children? And what does the evidence say about the impact of these plans?

“We want to take some of the emotion out of the debate and help people engage with the actual evidence that shows how disruptive and damaging these changes will be for children and young people.” 

“After all,” he added, “it is the next generation who will be most affected by these proposals.”

Luca Volonte, Chair of the largest political grouping at the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, welcomed today's launch saying, “I very much welcome the launch of this new resource and campaign in the UK. 

“Across Europe ordinary citizens are opposing same-sex marriage for the sake of their children. I am glad that the English are now engaged in this battle to save marriage as the best place for procreation and the nurture of the next generation.”