Oxfordshire: Anti-gay marriage activists deliver petition to David Cameron’s constituency office

Same-sex marriage opponents have delivered a postcard petition signed by 288 people to David Cameron’s Witney constituency office in Oxfordshire.

Organised by the anti-gay Coalition for Marriage (C4M) it stated: “Dear Mr Cameron, Please keep marriage as it is.”

Oxford Mail reports former Chipping Norton Conservatives branch chairwoman, Cicely Maunder, who resigned from her position over the issue in February, handed over the postcard.

C4M spokesman Mike Judge said: “Redefining marriage is a vote-loser.

“Ordinary people want politicians to fix the economy and deliver better public services, not fiddle about with marriage.

“The voters of Witney don’t want it and the voters of Britain don’t want it. It wasn’t in Mr Cameron’s manifesto and he has no mandate to redefine marriage over the heads of the people.”

Local elections take place in Oxfordshire and across England and Wales on Thursday.

In February, Conservative Equalities Minister Helen Grant responded to critics who have claimed that the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was being pushed through without a mandate by saying: “It was in the Contract for Equalities that was published at the same time as the Conservative General Election manifesto. It was quite clear what our intentions may well be.”

In June 2012, newly-wed couple Rhys and Esther Curnow delivered an anti-equal marriage petition to Downing Street, consisting of more than 550,000 signatures.

The accuracy of the petition, organised by C4M, was called into question after it was revealed that it contained multiple versions of identical signatures.

The House of Lords is set to debate the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill this month.

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