The debate was personal for Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson Scotland is on track to introduce marriage equality, with its parliament voting in favour by a massive majority – the stage one vote passed 98 to 15. The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill will now be scrutinized line-by-line before it faces a final vote. If it passes the next two stages, it will go to Queen Elizabeth II to be signed into law. The bill will allow transgender people to stay married when obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. The vote came after Lesbian Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson offered what she termed possibly the most personal speech she would ever give in the chamber, “I believe in marriage. While my own family had all the stresses and strains common to all there was never any doubt in my mind of the security. “More than 40 years later my parents still love each other and I look at that now and I want it. “I want that right to extend not just to me but to the thousands of people across Scotland who can’t marry the love of their life. It matters the whole section of society they can have the facsimile of civil partnership but can’t have the real thing. She added: “I don’t want the next generation of young gay people growing up as I did believing marriage is not for them. “That apartheid message, that same but different, is reflected in every hurtful comment. “We will wipe away the last legal barrier which says they are not equal to their peers. “I want everybody in Scotland to know marriage is open to them.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 21st November 2013 - 11:10am