The quick and easy version is here.
The full version of the form (in which you don’t have to answer all of the questions anyway, and you can be certain that they won’t have a “came from the Christian Institute” link on their stats) is here, and the document itself (not as abominably written as that old education consultation one was!) is here.
You have until 11:59 pm tomorrow, but gonnae just do it now? You don’t have to be resident in Scotland, contrary to the message given out for the past x weeks (apparently – no idea if this is actually the case, but so I was told and am repeating it to make you feel the urgency a bit more! – the pro-gay-marriage side have been sending in submissions all this time from all over the place, so we’ve been rather wrong-footed and need to catch up).
Edited to add: Useful short article here, if you find it is taking you ages to organise your thoughts. The questions on the response form are of a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” kind. The principal argument against homosexual marriage applies to civil partnerships as they currently stand, though Lazarus’ third point (three handy points here, and some stuff by John Haldane) makes one that uses the fact of their existence to argue against introducing homosexual marriage.
December 9, 2011 at 12:27 am
The equivalent ‘quick and easy’ form on the Equal Marriage website has never carried the warning that both the Christian Institute’s and Scotland for Marriage’s did about only applying to those in Scotland (although I notice that both have now (but only very recently) finally made it clear that all submissions are welcome, Scottish resident or not.)
There’s absolutely no doubt that the pro gay ‘marriage’ side have been trawling for non-Scottish contributions for most of the consultation period. And I bet they’ve managed to get quite a few.
December 9, 2011 at 12:42 am
Everyone click on Lazarus’ name – it takes you to his blog, with a HUGELY CONVENIENT AND HANDY summary of the obvious points, which I put far less succinctly in my reply. (Though I don’t think we should concede civil partnerships as they stand, since they are basically state recognition of a sexual relationship that should be of no interest to it at all, if it is not considered sufficently harmful to society to be banned. To agree to them is to give up the basic argument.).
December 9, 2011 at 11:20 am
Whilst I agree with you on the principle of civil partnerships (ie we shouldn’t have them!) I don’t think, as a practical matter, there’s any point in trying to undo them. And their existence does I think strengthen our case: their existence means that -even from a purely secular point of view- any further benefit to gay people in the introduction of same sex marriage is going to be small, and certainly couldn’t be described as urgent.
December 9, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Am tidying and packing, no time to discuss, sorry! But saying civil partnerships is okay kills all the solid arguments against same-sex marriage, because they are basically same-sex marriage. You’re left with the “But there’s hardly any difference, and the little difference would make me sad” argument. Which is not exactly a killer.
“I don’t think we should give up our values to find common ground. Then it’s not common ground, it’s their ground and we’re just standing on it.”
(Christopher Shinn, “Now or Later”)
December 9, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Done – thanks.