Tory MP claims same-sex marriage ‘discriminates against straight people’
Conservative MP Philip Davies said he supports ‘real equality’.
The MP has claimed that the legalisation of same-sex marriage has made the institution of marriage unequal and discriminative towards heterosexual couples.
A consistent critic of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, Philip Davies argued that marriage equality was in fact not “equal” at all.
“That Bill has nothing to do with equality, it’s actually now not equal marriage at all,” he told BBC Two’s Daily Politics.
He went on to accuse supporters of the bill of possessing “a strange view of equality which is that the groups that [they support] should have more equality than other people”.
“You can have civil partnerships and marriage for gay people. You can only have marriage for heterosexuals. It’s not equality.”
Mr Davies further argued that by refusing to back equality – he voted against marriage equality, unsurprisingly – he was, in fact, supporting it.
The Coalition Government lifted the ban on same-sex marriage in 2013 – however, a number of right-wing rebels – including Mr Davies – opposed the move.
In July, Mr Davies hit headlines when he opposed a bill on statutory sex and relationship education, branding the idea “tyranny”.
He spoke out after Green MP Caroline Lucas brought a 10-minute-rule bill to Parliament on PSHE – which included making an inclusive SRE education mandatory in all schools.
The MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, spoke against the motion – claiming that sex education does not work.
Laying in to “sex education fanatics”, he claimed: “There’s no actual evidence this makes any difference whatsoever.”
He also claimed that benefits reform would do more to lower the teenage pregnancy rate than “faffing about” with educating teenagers about sex. Mr Davies also appeared to suggest that sex education was to blame for teenage rape.
