Equality Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 119A moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alli. It feels very good to be supporting another part of the Bill. I am not, I hope, just a disability lobby, I feel very passionately about the whole equality agenda, and was persuaded to add my name to this amendment because I see the issue as a matter of religious freedom. I support its permissive approach: it seems good to enable the various religious denominations which now wish to perform and bless civil partnerships to be able to do so. There is no suggestion that this may be mandatory; I have had many conversations with my Christian friends over the past few weeks to talk about the permissiveness of this approach, and they feel that it is a fair approach. Some of your Lordships will have received a briefing note from the Quakers and others who feel that they should be able to follow the insights of their members in celebrating long-lived committed relationships between man and man or woman and woman in exactly the same way as they currently recognise the marriage of opposite-sex couples. Our laws sometimes need to adapt to catch up with society. I think that this is clearly the situation here. For me, accepting and valuing human diversity by supporting our fundamental differences will be the glue that binds us in the future. I urge your Lordships to support the amendment.