Long-standing Tory local chairman quits over equal marriage ‘attack on family values’
A long time local chairman for the Conservative party has resigned over the coalition government’s efforts to legalise marriage equality, saying the Prime Minster had “lost touch” with his party and attacked “family values”.
Edmund Costelloe, now the former chairman of Somerton and Frome Constituency Conservative Association, had been a member of the party for 49 years.
He said that propositions to legalise equal marriage came in the form of an “undebated and ill-thought-out attack on marriage between a man and a woman for the procreation of children.”
“David Cameron and a group of colleagues have utterly lost touch with the grassroots of the Conservative Party, the majority of whom are outraged by this attack on natural and historic family values,” he continued.
Ivan Massow, gay businessman and entrepreneur, has applied to be the Conservative candidate for the constituency.
Mr Costelloe went on to say that equal marriage was unnecessary, as civil partnerships were already legal, reports the Christian Institute.
However, in a sign the government remains determined to get its planned equal marriage legislation on the statute book within this year, Culture Secretary Maria Miller has refused to rule out using the Parliament Act to override the Lords in the event the bill becomes stalled.
