The UK House of Commons passed the third reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on Tuesday by a majority of 205. On Wednesday it will be passed to the House of Lords for the third reading there. That is (almost) a formality as any new amendments are unlikely and liable to be overturned by the Commons. By the end of the week, the Bill should have received Royal Assent making it law.
UPDATE: The Lords timetable was not clear at the time of writing but it looks like their final consideration will be extended until past the half term break that starts this week. We may well find that some of the backwoodsmen, the CofE Bishops (who sit in the Lords because of their office) and other religious leaders like the Chief Rabbi who are life peers may put up a rearguard action that will push Royal Assent back to late June/July. Although very unlikely, it is possible for the Lords to reject the bill but the Commons may well push it through under the Parliament Act and still stick to the intended operational date of the later half of 2014.
The bill provides for (almost) equal marriage in England and Wales. The exceptions are that religious groups are not obliged to conduct gay ceremonies although most will have the option of doing so. The established Church of England and Church in Wales, members of the Anglican communion, are banned from doing so. Any change would be dependent on a change in Canon Law by their General Synods.
A parallel bill is expected to be passed by the Scottish Parliament so that both will come into effect probably in 2014. The law is unlikely to be extended to Northern Ireland until and if the Northern Ireland Assembly is required to pass legislation by the Supreme Court or European Court of Human Rights following a future challenge by a resident there. Gay couples there would of course have the right to marry in Great Britain and that would be recognized thoughout the UK.
The bill was passed on a "free vote" with all main party leaders in favor and government time allocated for consideration of it. There were dissenters in all three main parties, mostly on grounds of conscience (read personal religious belief). There were a number of right wing "swivel eyed loons" in the Tory party pandering to their grassroots hysterics who are concerned about the threat from the even further right wing UKIP. In the debates some of the arguments familiar in the USA about "the sanctity of marriage" came out. Other Conservatives played the "it wasn't in our manifesto" argument even though David Cameron had made his position in favor perfectly clear.
There was also an attempt to scupper the bill by proposing an amendment that would extend Civil Partnerships to opposite sex couples. That would have had the effect of wrecking the timetable because of the necessary new stages it would have needed. Both the Labour and Liberal Democrats are in favor in principle of this proposal and the bill allowed for consultation on future legislation in the next Parliament (i.e. post 2015) An amendment agreed by all party leaders was passed which brought the timetable on the consultation forward allowed the speedy passage of the bill.
A further ploy employed by Tories was to object to government time for the bill "because we have to concentrate on the economy" as well as not specifically being in the Conservative manifesto in 2010. It was however implicit in the Coalition agreement in 2010 in the Equalities section which, in relation to LGBT people stated:
We will stop the deportation of asylum
seekers who have had to leave particular
countries because their sexual orientation or
gender identification puts them at proven risk
of imprisonment, torture or execution.
•
We will use our relationships with other
countries to push for unequivocal support for
gay rights and for UK civil partnerships to be
recognised internationally.
The government time issued was pressed by the Liberal Democrats who these Tories forget are also in the Government.
Gay couples who have already entered into Civil Partnerships will be able to convert these into full marriages within a couple of years of the Act's start of operation without having to go through further ceremonies. Civil Partnerships can be registered by simply signing the official register in the presence of witnesses and the local Registrar (of births, deaths and marriages) or their deputy. Weddings must be nominally public although of course the location etc might make unrestricted public access impossible. In practice, the official wording of gay couples holding "a ceremony to enter into a Civil Partnership" was not used generally. They were usually simply called a marriage ceremony.
The consultation on civil partnerships for opposite sex couples is likely to have three options. The first will be to maintain the then status quo, the second to allow opposite sex couples to have civil partnerships and the third would simply abolish CPs and convert existing partnerships to full marriages unless either objected.