LobbyALord launched to help encourage peers to come Out4Marriage in equal marriage debate
A new website has been launched in order to make it easy for members of the public to lobby peers in the House of Lords ahead of next week’s second reading of the Marriage (same sex couples) Bill.
The website, Lobby a Lord, was launched today by equal marriage campaign group Out4Marriage, and allows users to either lobby a randomly picked peer ahead of next week’s debate, or search and identify peers based on their equal marriage or LGBT rights stance.
The site displays information on the previous voting record of the peer, their declared stance on equal marriage, the number of times they have been lobbied using the site, and their twitter accounts, where available.
James-J Walsh Director of Campaigns for Out4Marriage, said: “We have until Monday to really make an impact and save the Equal Marriage debate from being scuppered in the House of Lords.
“The amount of time allocated to the debate has already been extended because so many Peers are seeking to talk on the issue, and Lord Dear has introduced an amendment seeking to derail the Bill. However all is not lost, personal accounts from real people are what have an impact and the power to change not only hearts and minds, but in this case hopefully motivate Lords who often don’t come to Parliament to turn out in support of this debate.
“We are calling for all equal marriage supporters, whether LGBT or straight/heterosexual to contact a peer using our new simple LobbyALord.org website, as well as talk about the debate on social media and other websites too using #LobbyALord”.
With at least 86 peers having requested to speak on Monday, the vote could have happened as late as 3am.
A government source said: “The government wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise the equal marriage bill and it’s disingenuous to pretend it would. If we need to have the vote in the Lords the next day because second reading is likely to run past peers bedtimes, then that’s fine.”
