The British House of Commons voted to legalize gay marriage by an overwhelmingly majority of 400 to 175 despite a major rebellion by Conservative MPs.
Although Britain has allowed same-sex couples to enter into civil partnerships since 2004, Prime Minister David Cameron has long stated his belief that they should be entitled to full equality before the law.

In late January, the government introduced the Marriage (Same-Sex Partners) Bill into Parliament’s lower house. The legislation would allow same-sex couples to marry in religious as well as civil ceremonies, though a much-vaunted “quadruple lock” would ensure that no religious organization would be forced to solemnize same-sex unions. The Church of England was particularly anxious about the bill, fearing that since it is the state church, it could be forced to host gay weddings. However, the bill specifically states that the church can continue to pass legislation that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman (under the terms of an act passed during the reign of Henry VIII, ecclesiastical laws must always yield to secular law).

But while the move to legalize gay marriage proved popular with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, it exposed bitter divisions within Cameron’s own party. Last weekend the chairs of 20 local Conservative groups presented Downing Street with a letter urging the Prime Minister to delay the vote, claiming that the government had no mandate to redefine such a key institution.

They also claimed that Cameron’s support for gay marriage would lead to an exodus of local party members, a finding echoed by a recent poll commissioned by opponents of gay marriage that reported that 20 percent of Conservative voters would vote against the party in the next election due to its stance on the issue.

As is typical with matters of this sort, the leaders of all three major parties allowed their MPs to vote according to their consciences. Over the weekend, the British media reported that up to 180 Conservative MPs might ultimately vote against the bill. In the end, 139 voted against and 30 abstained. The dissenters included two Cabinet ministers (Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and Welsh Secretary David Jones), as well as three junior ministers. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond and Attorney-General Dominic Grieve both abstained.

The debate on the bill was often quite emotional. Openly-gay Conservative MP Mike Freer urged his colleagues to support the bill. “I am not asking for special treatment. I am simply asking for equal treatment.

Speaking in opposition to the bill, Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale claimed that the government was entering “Alice in Wonderland territory.” Instead of redefining marriage, he called on ministers to “withdraw the Bill, abolish the Civil Partnership Act 2004, abolish civil marriage and create a civil union Bill that applies to all people, irrespective of their sexuality or relationship. That means that brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters and brothers and sisters would be included as well.”

Meanwhile, his colleague Matthew Offord warned that the bill represented a slippery slope that could lead to the legalization of polygamous relationships. Referring to the law on marriage, he said that “another government can simply change the definition to include as many partners as they want.”

The bill will now receive clause-by-clause scrutiny from a Public Bill Committee, and when it returns to the full House, MPs will have another chance to vote on it. Then it goes on to the House of Lords, where it may face stiffer opposition. While it is highly unlikely that peers would reject the bill outright, they may try to kill it by passing amendments that the Commons are unlikely to accept. If that happens, there could be a lengthy period of ‘ping pong’ as the two houses try to iron out their differences. If agreement cannot be reached, the government may have to reintroduce the bill in the next parliamentary session and use the Parliament Acts 1911 & 1949 to override peers’ objections.

Image Courtesy :  Robyn Ramsay

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New York, U.S.A. — In the wake of President Obama’s recent backing of same-sex marriage and a Supreme Court decision looming, BeautifulPeople.com is launching Gay and Lesbian versions of its online dating site in a national show of support for equal rights. BeautifulPeople’s billboard campaign, scheduled to launch across the country in support of same-sex marriage legislation, has been banned.

Choosing not to bow to an infringement on their right to free expression, BeautifulPeople has redesigned censored versions of the billboards. The censored images, originally a playful take on political dissonance, have gone up in 10 locations around Los Angeles including West Hollywood, California – one of the largest LGBT communities in the country – and also in Florida.

The original BeautifulPeopleGay.com billboard shows a loving matrimonial union between the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and TV personality. The BeautifulWomenOnly.com billboard features former presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann kissing Sarah Palin, the gun-toting former Alaska governor and darling of the right. Both billboards show President Obama as officiant.

“This is a national campaign championing equal rights for the LGBT community and pledging support in a colorful way,” says Greg Hodge, BeautifulPeople’s Managing Director. “Through a humorous campaign we wanted to showcase how many of our political heavyweights are living in the last century.”

Determined to play an active role in the national effort to legislate equal rights for the LGBT community, BeautifulPeople.com is giving 15% from every same-sex membership to a non-profit organization championing marriage equality.

BeautifulPeople.com, an online dating site exclusively for beautiful people, already has a large gay membership; however only opposite sex voting is allowed to avoid members voting strategically against other beautiful hopefuls. The exclusively gay versions now allow gay members to enjoy the same-sex voting process and vote according to their own unique definition of beauty.

Both sites, www.beautifulpeoplegay.com and www.beautifulwomenonly.com, are now live, coinciding with the BeautifulPeople marriage equality campaign launch.

Images: The following are links to images of the uncensored billboard campaign, and the wedding album images from the BeautifulPeopleGAY photo shoot. Images of the uncensored billboard truck in NYC are also available upon request.

See the billboard here: http://www.beautifulpeople.com/microsites/billboards/

See the wedding album here: http://www.beautifulpeople.com/microsites/WeddingAlbum/

About BeautifulPeople.com

Like BeautifulPeople.com, acceptance to the site is a democratic process, with existing members voting beautiful hopefuls in or out. All members must pass through a strict rating process to make sure they are up to standard. Potential members submit a picture of themselves and existing members then vote. If successful they have exclusive access to a dating site where the one thing they can guarantee is that everyone is good looking and they don’t have to filter through riff raff.

BeautifulPeople is the largest community of attractive people in the world representing almost every ethnic and cultural background. This coveted community shamelessly exists so beautiful people can meet other beautiful people. There have been over 650 marriages through unions founded on BeautifulPeople.com and thousands of beautiful babies born.

Image Courtesy of  davidyuweb

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New York, U.S.A. – Author Jeffrey Sharlach’s critically-acclaimed new novel RUNNING IN BED (Two Harbors Press; $14.95 paperback; $7.99 eBook) looks at the experiences of a generation of gay men who came of age in the 1970s, the decade following the Stonewall uprising considered the birth of the modern gay rights movement in America.

Hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a “fast-moving and engaging story that will linger with the reader long after the final page is turned,” Running in Bed tells the story of Josh Silver, an ambitious young college grad who’s just landed his first job at a prestigious Madison Avenue advertising agency.

Everything in his life is working out just fine—except for one nagging problem: he can’t stop dreaming about men. Josh seeks professional help to reprogram his sexual desire but in 1977 New York City’s gay community is basking in the golden glow of the post-Stonewall decade and Josh finally succumbs to its lure.

In what Kirkus called “a vibrant, accomplished debut,” first-time novelist Sharlach paints a brilliant picture of life in New York for a gay man at that moment in history. From the New York club scene to summers on Fire Island, Sharlach writes with humor, poignancy, and charm, and presents characters who are universal in their appeal.

When the AIDS crisis brings the free spirit of the 70s to a crushing end, the book’s characters are forced to navigate the turmoil of an era where beauty, youth, wealth and life itself seem unimaginably fragile. It’s a personal tale for Sharlach whose own partner’s life was claimed by the disease in 1994 after they had been together as a couple for nearly 13 years.

“Running in Bed is mostly a love story,” Sharlach explained. ”But it was also important for me to try to capture that remarkable time in our history for future generations. This isn’t something most young people learn about in social studies class.”

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