It was a fascinating debate in Britain, but in the end the result was clear. From The Guardian’s Politics Live blog:
MPs vote overwhelmingly in favour of gay marriage
Britain is on course to adopt gay marriage after the House of Commons voted to give the marriage (same sex couples) bill a second reading by a majority of 225. The bill will still have to receive line-by-line scrutiny in the Commons, and then it will have to get through the Lords, but the size of the majority, and the fact that the leaders of all three main parties are in favour, suggest that it is now inevitable that gay marriage will become law. The legal differences between civil partnerships and marriage are slight (see section one of this briefing document for more detail), but gay and lesbian campaigners have demanded full equality and now they are on course to get it. …
David Cameron has failed to persuade more than half of his MPs to support gay marriage. Only 127 Tory MPs supported it. Another 136 opposed it, and 40 MPs either voted both ways (actively abstaining) or did not vote.
This result (and Obama starting to make noises in America) bodes well for our own bill (Louisa Wall’s Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill). The predictable conservative backlash here is looking increasingly like it is on the wrong side of history.
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