ENGLAND: Conservative Party Roils over Same-Sex Marriage
An Eastleigh by election could change the political landscape in England
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 15, 2013
Britain's Conservative Party under Prime Minister David Cameron is deeply divided over his political push to make same-sex marriage legal, pushing it on to the national stage. Conservative MPs and local Party Association Chairmen warn that the gay marriage bill has "weakened" Cameron's position. Two-thirds believe the Conservatives are now a divided party, according to the exclusive YouGov poll.Mr. Cameron had hoped extending gay rights would help shed the Tories' "nasty party" image. It did not appear in the Party Manifesto for the General Election or in the Queen's speech, but Cameron is determined to make a central piece of his political reform for England.
But there is considerable disquiet in the Conservative Party over the Prime Minister's project to introduce same-sex marriage. In the second reading of the bill in the House of Commons, a majority of Conservative MPs, some 134, voted against the bill, refusing to back him.
A Conservative Association Chairman, Ed Costello, resigned over the issue. A group of 23 Conservative Association Chairmen presented a letter to Cameron's office at 10 Downing Street on February 3rd protesting the bill and setting up a website Conservative Grassroots with a lead article that screams "Don't divide us over marriage." http://www.conservativegrassroots.org.uk/
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