Equal Marriage and the Scottish Same-Sex Marriage Consultation

Today I am on leave from work and, although the day has been set aside for dissertation work, I have been doing something more important this morning...

Today, 9th December, is the final day to respond to the Scottish Same-Sex Marriage Consultation and although I have had the excellent form from the Equality Network in my kitchen for a while I've only just got around to sending my response and wanted to share information on how others can do this today and to also provide my accompanying message to my local MSPs.

I would ask you all to respond to the consultation however you see fit. Marriage is a hugely personal matter so I do not expect that all my friends and readers to agree with my perspective but it is worth saying that I support same-sex marriage as a matter of equality of rights. However as marriage is a state recognised relationship I think it is important that all in Scotland voice their opinion no matter what that might be.

The announcement about the consultation can be found here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/09/02114626

The Equality Network consultation response form is here:
http://www.equalmarriage.org.uk/consultation.php

The additional Equality Network form to email MSPs seems to be broken but you can email them via Write to Them - click on the link to "Write to all of your regional MSPs" in the Your Members of the Scottish Parliament column (which will show when you enter your postcode): http://www.writetothem.com/

And here is what I have written (based partly on the Equality Network suggested wording) to my own local MSPs:

Dear David McLetchie, Neil Findlay, Alison Johnstone, Margo MacDonald, Gavin Brown, Sarah Boyack and Kezia Dugdale,


I live in your constituency and strongly support marriage equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Scotland.  I also support opening up civil partnership to mixed-sex couples.  


I am a gay woman who has been in a happy civil partnership for over five years and feel very privileged to have found and been able to enter a state recognised partnership with the woman I love. I do not, however, feel that the civil partnership act fully recognises and respects the rights of non-heterosexuals.


LGBT people are the only group who are banned from marrying.  The introduction of civil partnership was a very important step forward, but this is not equality.  The law should be changed to make the same choices, marriage or civil partnership, available to couples regardless of their gender.


I am not religious so my personal preference would be for a system of the state only recognising civil partnerships that are open to both mixed-sex and same-sex couples, with religious ceremonies a separate non state-recognised process.


However the state currently recognises religious ceremonies and there are many same-sex couples who have strong faith and supportive communities around their faith and I think it is fundamentally unequal to exclude same-sex couples from engaging in a legally recognised ceremony in their own religious community that recognises their long, genuine and loving relationships in exactly the same way as heterosexual couples. How can it be fair, equal or dignified that gay persons of faith are treated differently by the state than heterosexual persons of faith?


Furthermore I think it is shocking that there is currently a requirement for transsexual people to divorce before a full gender recognition certificate can be issued. No sensible marriage system would require a loving relationship to be legally separate - a lengthy, costly and traumatic process - in order to give an individual in that relationship their personal rights and freedoms. I therefore also call upon you to support the ending of this peculiar and outdated aspect of the marriage and gender recognition law. I am not a transgendered person but I know several wonderful trans people whose lives have been hugely enriched by being able to live as the people and the gender that they are, not as the bodies they were born with dictate. In some cases this transition is something undertaken quite alone but for others the presence of a loving committed partner is hugely beneficial and to enforce divorce before a trans person can have their identity legally recognised is unkind and unfair. Changing this requirement would also mean that those trans people whose partners have not been as supportive and where there has been a breakdown of relationship cannot delay the recognition of that persons identity because of lengthy divorce processes. Individual human rights to identity and personhood, and state recognised relationship rights should never have been bound in this way.


As your constituent, I am asking you to regard all of your constituents as having the same rights to live, to love, and to be part of society on an equal basis and, as such, I am asking you to support marriage equality in Scotland.


Yours with respect,


Nicola.

Fitness, Fury and Faghaggery

Fitter
So firstly I am feeling, despite drinking lemsip as I type, a whole heap better today after a day off work sleeping, sleeping, sleeping and calming myself with Diagnosis Murder and Shaun the Sheep... Therapeutic stuff indeed. Also today's episode of Torchwood thanks to the magic of iPlayer as my missus (who came home at lunchtime today to make tonight's dinner and put it in the fridge like a true star) is out tonight at a meeting. It was a good Torchwood though I feel I'm missing out now that I've head about their alternative reality game The Torchwood Mission that goes with it curtosy of the Guardian Tech Weekly Podcast. Darn. BTW I'm all about the Ianto & Jack lovin. Sorta liking Martha Jones from Doctor Who (is it turning into a kids only show these days btw?) turning up. And worried greatly for Owen. Although he has weird skin. But I digress.

So, health mostly recovered, I am finally feeling up to homework which is how I shall spend the rest of this evening and tomorrow evening as I badly need to catch up and since this fortnight's topic is web2.0 and hypertext I'm all geared up and interested now that my head doesn't feel like a high pressure hot air balloon!

Fury!
Can you believe the new xenophobic immigration proposals today? Heather and I are irate not only because we have a little invested in the whole immigration law thing but also because we're not foaming crazed xenophobes. And we know just how much net contribution most immigrants make into the tax system. Indeed far from the tabloid view that all immigrants are benefits malingerers almost all legal immigrants are not actually allowed "recourse to public funds" until they are citizens after at least 5 years of residency here. And that's assuming they want to become citizens otherwise they get less recourse despite continuing to pay into the public purse. Perhaps all native dwellers who only take and do not contribute to the tax and national insurance systems should also have to make special payments as a malingerers tax to match the immigrant's tax. Or maybe we are a civilised country with a welfare state that should not be thinking that way.

Anyway the whole thing leaves me wondering:

a) What the fuck constitutes Britishness? I'm sure I don't know. And I suspect I wouldn't qualify if you tested me.

b) If Labour just turned slightly right wing of the BNP.

c) Just how many bloody bankers the government think they want in the country: with medical staff from outside the EU now barred, income and testing barriers to immigrants; £700+ fees for applications for leave to remain and the most prohibitive work permit applications possible they pretty much restrict non EU incomers to being millionaires in form-evading industries (who will likely keep their money elsewhere - like the "non-doms" the government is leaving in charge of Northern Rock) or illegal immigrants. "Normal" folks need not apply. Unless they wish to mortgage their soul and trade in their personality for a "British" cliche, Terrifying.

Faghaggary
On a much much lighter note. Today's Savage Love Podcast ended on a pleading note with Dan Savage, following a particularly sad caller ringing about the trauma of being a faghag who's fag was no longer interested, begging fags everywhere to be nice to their faghags when they've outgrown them. I felt quite the pang of sympathy as, whilst never invested in one of those straight girl/gay guy faghag situations (which is a bit different as there's always that weird possibility that maybe, just maybe, there'll be a full long term relationship not that very loving, very intense, very non-sexual thing to take a relationship's place) but being a bi/gay gal faghag is not wholly different so I can speak from experience that the break up of said almost relationship is quite traumatic. Thankfully my fag has stayed my pal but for a while there things were weird. And hey, we still hold quite the tie to each other. Anyway if you need a serious dose of education on faghags see The Object of My Affection. Far far far better than the borderline homophobic and generally excreble "comedy" Will & Grace where, regardless of how they sold the show, the will they/won't they plot was core to the entire horrible thing. Although Karen and Jack were far more a faghaggy pair they were just a bit too open to anything to properly get the vibe across. Wow. I'd forgotten how pleased I was when that show got cancelled. Phew...

Anyway I should go away and do my homework thang. And my Oscar ballot thang. Oh and to be impressed at the amazing age that Edna Everedge's eternal bridesmaid Madge reached - she just died aged 100 which is not bad at all especially as she only retired aged 98!

Oh and finally... I was listening to Radio 4's new Museum of Curiosity but I can't say I'm totally taken with it. Bill Bailey doesn't seem to be used to his best though Brian Blessed was entertaining and did a fabulous Tarzan call. Sean Lock's revolutionary scarf knot also gave me pause for thought. Problem is it seems to be Genius. Minus the geniuses... hmm...