Tory MP Nadine Dorries: ‘I’ve never met a gay couple that wants to marry, so bin the policy’
Following a tirade against the prime minister in the Daily Mail, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has stuck the boot into his pledge to introduce equal civil marriage for gay couples before the next election. She suggests that most gay people don’t support changing the law.
The divorced MP wrote on the Conservative Home website: “We need to jettison both the policy of gay marriage and Lords reform.
“Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin. I have yet to meet a gay couple in my constituency or beyond who support it; in fact, the reaction has been quite the opposite. Great Britain and its gay couples don’t live on Canal Street in Manchester, shop in The Lanes in Brighton or socialise at Gaydar in London.
“Gay couples are no different from heterosexual couples and yet this policy transforms them into political agitators who have set themselves against the church and community. The policy is divisive, unpopular with the public, is tearing the Conservative Party apart and will influence absolutely no one in terms of the way they vote in the future.
She added:”I won’t dwell on who got the policy into No10 in the first place; however, as I am sure the happy-in-a-civil-partnership Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw would agree, it should never have been given the time of day in the first instance.”
Mrs Dorries divorced her husband in 2007 and later began a relationship with a married man although that relationship also ended last year.
Since PinkNews.co.uk first published this story, hundreds of readers have contacted Mrs Dorries on Twitter to inform her that they want to marry.
Last week, David Cameron told the Evening Standard that he is “clear about my views” on the issue. He said:“I ask myself the question, why is it that we deny gay couples the ability to get married, and I don’t think that’s right.
Recognising the heated debate on the subject within his own party and the Church, Mr Cameron said: “Obviously this is a controversial issue. I feel the time for change has come. If you ask, particularly young people, they say this feels like a very natural change to make … We are not changing what happens in church.”
When questioned on the role of the Church of England in the debate and his role in the appointment of the successor of the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the newspaper wrote that the prime minister “suddenly looks genuinely upset”. He told the paper: “I have said enough. I don’t want to start getting into a fight with the Church. The Conservative Party has been on a journey to where all small-c institutions go, in a modern world, which is that if marriage is good for heterosexuals it is good for gay couples too.”
Last year at the Conservative Party conference, Mr Cameron said: “I stood before a Conservative conference once and I said it shouldn’t matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a man and another man or a woman and a woman.
“You applauded me for that. Five years on, we’re consulting on legalising gay marriage.
“And to anyone who has reservations, I say this: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other.
“So I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative.”
