Current Affairs

Baroness Barker: The House of Lords showed its spirit, relevance and understanding by voting for equal marriage

Jun 04 2013
Written by Joseph McCormick

Openly gay Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Liz Barker, has told PinkNews.co.uk that she thinks the House of Lords “showed it’s generosity, spirit, relevance and understanding of young people”, in rejecting a measure to wreck the equal marriage bill.

Peers in the House of Lords voted this evening with a large majority to scrap an amendment tabled by Lord Dear, which would have deprived the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill of its second reading.

Speaking to PinkNews, in reaction to the vote in favour of equal marriage, Baroness Barker said: “I think this is a very proud moment for the House of Lords, I think it has shown its generosity, and spirit. I think it’s show its relevance and understanding of young people. Things that it isn’t always acknowledged for. It was a really really good day for equality, and a really good day for the House of Lords.

When asked whether she was fearful that the bill might of been defeated by the amendment, she said: “You never like to take things for granted, and the opposition to this has been highly well funded by these Evangelical Christian groups, and they’re very well organised at getting their propaganda around, so I didn’t take anything for granted at all”.

Baroness Barker, who made a speech yesterday during the debate, in which she spoke of her love for another woman – revealing publicly for the first time that she, herself, is in a same-sex relationship.

She earlier wrote for PinkNews.co.uk on the need to lobby members of the House of Lords ahead of next week’s vote of the same-sex marriage bill in the Upper House.