In a matter of days the Scottish Parliament will vote on Scotland’s equal marriage legislation, which will complement the same-sex marriage act passed for England and Wales earlier this year. The stage one vote on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill is expected in about two weeks time.
LGBT campaign group the Equality Network say, “Whether or not you’ve already contacted your MSPs in the past, please contact them now to ask them to vote for this Bill: you can find more about it on www.equalmarriage.org.uk/itstime – we know those opposing equal marriage will be contacting MSPs too.
“This is an important moment for LGBT equality in Scotland. By passing this legislation MSPs will remove the last major piece of sexual orientation discrimination from Scots law, and they will give LGBT people an equal right to marry the person that they love.
“Since we launched the Equal Marriage campaign in 2008 the Equality Network has been working hard for this legislation and pushing to make it as progressive as possible.”
“In recent months we’ve given evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee, and we’ve been busy meeting with MSPs from across the parties to make the case for passing the Bill and for supporting the five Equality Network / Scottish Trans Alliance amendments.”
Depending on the decisions the Scottish Parliament makes there may be some differences in same-sex marriage law North and South of the border. For example, Scotland might not implement the discriminatory ‘spousal veto’ rule, which allows a married person with a trans spouse to bar them from obtaining a gender recognition certificate.
