Tag Archives: Labour Party

UK Equalities Minister introduces law allowing gays to marry in churches

From the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Lex Communis)

Excerpt:

Gays and lesbians will be able to ‘marry’ in church under new laws to be unveiled this week.

The historic decision by Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone will end the legal definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.

A gay couple will be able to refer to one of the partners as a ‘husband’, and a lesbian couple will be able to refer to one of the partners as a ‘wife’.

A key part of the reform will bring an end to the ban that prevents civil partnerships being conducted in places of worship.

In a major concession to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems, the Government will announce that for the first time, such ceremonies will be allowed to have a religious element, including hymns and Bible readings. They could be carried out by priests or other religious officials.

[…]Ms Featherstone will also say gays should be able to hold traditional weddings in register offices and other civil settings such as country houses and even football grounds.

[…]The change could also lead to legal action by gay couples denied the right to marry in church.

Gay marriages are already legal in Canada, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and some American states.

The Liberal Democrats are to the left of the Labour Party in the UK. They are like the New Democrats in Canada.

Even though the Liberal Democrats are hostile to Christianity, there were probably many Christians who voted for them as a way of promoting “equality” and “social justice” through redistribution of wealth. But the more government grows, the more they meddle in civil society. No billionaire business owner has the power to coerce and control a private citizen as much as the lowest level politician has. Businesses can only sell you things if you freely choose to buy them – hardly oppressive. But the most feeble government bureaucrat can coerce you and sanction you for failing to comply with his will – you don’t have a choice of whether to comply or not.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
(Thomas Jefferson)

Note that this sort of thing happens in Canada, too.

Related posts

155,000 illegal immigrants receiving welfare benefits in the socialist UK

From the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Verum Serum)

Excerpt:

Tens of thousands of workers with no right to be in Britain have been claiming benefits thanks to an extraordinary loophole in the law.

Ministers have discovered that Labour allowed 155,000 illegal immigrants to qualify for sickness benefits and maternity pay. Government sources put the cost to the public purse at ‘tens of millions of pounds’.

They say the shambles is a damning indictment of how Labour lost control of both the benefits and immigration systems with taxpayers left to foot the bill. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will outlaw the practice in welfare reform legislation expected to be unveiled this week.

Ministers believe most of those abusing the system came to work in Britain for a limited period and overstayed their visa. Others managed to get a job without a work permit.

At present, someone could be illegally in the UK and able to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), paid to those too sick to work, as well as statutory payments such as maternity or paternity pay and sick pay.

Astonishingly, the Work and Pensions Department has not in the past asked to see work permits when assessing claims for ESA.

Employers, meanwhile, have not been asked to show proof that workers are in Britain legally when processing claims for maternity or paternity pay or sick pay.

[…]Hundreds of thousands of National Insurance numbers were handed out under Labour to illegal workers as, alarmingly, there was no requirement on JobCentre staff to check whether a person was in the country legally.

[…]However, the European Commission has warned ministers that the rules may infringe the human rights of EU citizens and are ‘not compatible’ with EU law. It has started legal proceedings against Britain to have restrictions on welfare claims by incomers scrapped.

[…]The scale of the welfare challenge facing Britain is laid bare today in figures which show at least 330,000 children – around one in 30 – are growing up with a parent claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The Labour Party is the UK-based equivalent of the Democrat party here, and Democrats also advocate for similar welfare programs for illegal aliens. Here, illegal immigrants get free health care (from emergency rooms, that cannot turn anyone away), free schooling in public schools, and free birthright citizenship. And they get to work without paying any income taxes. It’s a mess. This is being paid for by everyone else who plays by the rules. And all this doesn’t even include the crime problems.

Now consider this article from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Verum Serum)

Excerpt:

Ministers today faced calls for an inquiry into claims that their open-door immigration policy was designed to make Britain more multicultural and allow Labour to portray the Tories as racists.

A former Labour adviser alleged that the Government opened up Britain’s borders in part to try to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration…

The Daily Mail reported on Saturday the controversial claims by Andrew Neather, who worked for Tony Blair and Jack Straw.

He said Labour’s relaxation of immigration controls in 2000 was a deliberate attempt to engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country and plug gaps in the jobs market.

He said the ‘major shift’ in immigration policy was inspired by a 2001 policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think-tank based in the Cabinet Office…

Ministers were reluctant to discuss the move publicly for fear that it would alienate Labour’s core working-class vote, Mr Neather said. But they hoped it would allow them to paint the Conservatives as xenophobic and out of touch.

‘I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date,’ Mr Neather added.

That’s right. This mess was intentionally created.

Does dispensing the morning-after pill to teens reduce teen pregnancies?

From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

A government scheme to give teenagers the morning-after pill free of charge at pharmacies in a bid to cut down on unwanted pregnancies has led to a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, research shows. A study has found that the policy simply encouraged young people to have unprotected sex and had failed to cut down the number of under-age pregnancies.

Professors Sourafel Girma and David Paton of Nottingham University compared areas of England where the scheme was introduced with those where it was not or where it was implemented later. They found that pregnancy rates for girls aged under 16 remained the same while the rates of sexually transmitted diseases increased by 12 per cent in those areas where the pill was available free from chemists. Prof Paton said: “We find that offering the morning-after pill free of charge didn’t have the intended effect of cutting teenage pregnancies but did have the unfortunate side of effect of increasing sexually transmitted infections.

Remember, those pills were bought with taxpayer dollars, and the morning-after-pill can cause abortions in some cases, by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting. But what do you expect, it’s the socialist UK.