tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post7344715984289542877..comments2024-03-28T07:16:39.621+00:00Comments on Lallands Peat Worrier: Same-sex marriage: Holyrood's impending stramash...Lallands Peat Worrierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18276270498204697708noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-68891869923099048842012-03-21T13:55:13.518+00:002012-03-21T13:55:13.518+00:00There's no need for any new legislation to gua...There's no need for any new legislation to guarantee a "religious opt-out". The reasonable religious lobby are not among the anti-marriage campaigners.<br /><br />The claims by homophobic religious groups that they might be "forced" to conduct marriages of same-sex couples are completely ridiculous - put bluntly, they are <i>lying</i>. They know they can't be forced to conduct a religious ceremony against their religious beliefs. They're just making stuff up to sound bad.<br /><br />(Also, I would guess that several of the Churches have leadership who would <i>like</i> to be able to wave a legal ban at dissenting clergy who feel a right in conscience to celebrate same-sex wedding ceremonies.)EdinburghEyehttp://edinburgheye.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-43255937016475518852012-03-20T23:12:41.843+00:002012-03-20T23:12:41.843+00:00I think the stramash in Scotland has already happe...I think the stramash in Scotland has already happened and I would guess that the SG will bring forward a bill that allows for same sex marriages in religious settings as well as civil settings and also allows for mixed sex civil partnerships. I will be surprised if more than 10 - 20 per cent of MSPs oppose that.<br /><br />There may be a stramash however as England appears to have decided to just do civil same sex marriage and not allow religious services. That creates some awkwardness as the SG would need Westminster to put something into equalities legislation to specifically guarantee a religious opr out.<br /><br />I don't think that is necessary myself but it will be expedient to pacify the reasonable religious lobby. There's nothing that can be done about the extremists.Indyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383904151475839441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-65990912782913148862012-03-20T19:55:58.627+00:002012-03-20T19:55:58.627+00:00I am sufficiently old-fashioned to think that the ...I am sufficiently old-fashioned to think that the detailed operation of the law is not a matter for Parliament anyway. You wouldn't trust 129 individuals chosen for psephological rather than intellectual reasons to design a bridge or plan brain surgery, and you shouldn't turn them loose on the mechanics of the law either. The old Scots Parliament didn't do that. Look at the Leases Act 1449: admirably concise; and it achieves its beneficial effect because, having declared a policy intention, Parliament left it to legal professionals to make it work. I guarantee its more detailed successors won't last five and a half centuries!Am Firinnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-47088749740070145222012-03-20T12:10:27.457+00:002012-03-20T12:10:27.457+00:00Drafting – whether it be a contract or legislation...Drafting – whether it be a contract or legislation – is not easy even in ideal circumstances. But textual clarity and certainty are possible at all only where there is agreement about the result to be achieved. All too often, in the real world, there is not. In many contracts the only way in which “consensus” is achievable, is to ignore or fudge areas of difficulty. Then, when the contract eventually ends up in court, the result is that the draftsman is excoriated by the judge(s) for his ineptitude. In fact he was not inept at all: he had adopted the only possible strategy to achieve the peremptory command of the negotiating parties, viz the production of a form of words to which both (or all) of them could append their signatures. Exactly the same is true of legislation. There are good legislative draftsmen and bad (I have encountered both) but even the best cannot surmount either lack of clarity in the objective that the parliamentarians seek to achieve or parliamentary insistence that contradictory objectives be embraced in the same legislative instrument. I suspect that this, regrettable though it be to purists such as I, is simply a fact of parliamentary and political life and that no form of revising chamber or committee structure can ever overcome it.Robert Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.com