British Conservatives Lead Charge to Legalize Gay Marriage

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Funny thing'll be that his bankbenchers will revolt on this, big time. It'll be Labour, the LibDems and the Tory frontbench that get this through.

Cameron's Tories aren't the party that the international media says they are.

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BUMP

I'm so shocked.

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The fact that he's our least experienced PM in a long time really shows.

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http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/05/06/exclusive-david-cameron-not-backing-down-on-equal-marriage/

But he has done. He's delaying it for no reason other than to please Tory backbenchers.

Exactly.

"Backing down" doesn't mean the same as "abandoning".

For example, Blair Labour didn't abandon electoral reform, they backed down on it.

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Blair/Brown Labour also had 13 years with large majorities and no angry backbenchers to (fully) legalize gay marriage, y'know...

They legalized civil unions, and would probably have legalized gay marriage if they'd won in 2010.

Therefore making them... the same as Cameron!  (Complete with the "probably" - certainly a low level of probability given the previous 13 years...).  Also still makes them more socially-conservative than John Lynch (y'know, that NH governor who's vetoing the medical marijuana bill; he signed gay marriage back in '09).

Not exactly the same as Cameron. Cameron's support of same-sex marriage stinks of oppurtunism when you see that he voted for the down-right homophobic section 28.

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Blair/Brown Labour also had 13 years with large majorities and no angry backbenchers to (fully) legalize gay marriage, y'know...

They legalized civil unions, and would probably have legalized gay marriage if they'd won in 2010.

Therefore making them... the same as Cameron!  (Complete with the "probably" - certainly a low level of probability given the previous 13 years...).  Also still makes them more socially-conservative than John Lynch (y'know, that NH governor who's vetoing the medical marijuana bill; he signed gay marriage back in '09).

Not exactly the same as Cameron. Cameron's support of same-sex marriage stinks of oppurtunism when you see that he voted for the down-right homophobic section 28.

And voted against gay adoption.

Twice.

All of those were 3-line whips, which mean potential expulsion from the party if disobeyed (party discipline is/can be much more strictly enforced in the UK).

Thanks. I didn't know that.

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Defying a three-line whip tends not to result in expulsion, fwiw...

It can even be endearing if you're playing to the backbenches.

IIRC it tends to get you a bollocking from the party whips, but unless you're a repeat offender expulsion isn't the case.

Especially on an issue like this.