Equality Bill

My Lords, that is a point that confuses me; perhaps others can enlighten me. A civil marriage with a religious component is surely a marriage. If you want to marry with a religious ceremony, you are allowed to do so. It is called a marriage. If you wish to have a civil partnership and you want to share that celebration with people of your own faith and, more important, they want to share it with you, and their church permits it, this amendment would allow it to happen. There is a difference, but heterosexual couples have a solution because they can get married in church. That should satisfy both those needs. This is not meant to be an attack on the central tenets of religion. The Quakers, liberal Judaism and the Unitarian churches want these provisions to allow them to start their debate. I was a little disappointed by the responses of the Front Benches on all sides of the Committee. Maybe it is the way the usual channels work; maybe it is because this Bill has a pace; maybe we do not want to enter into these discussions at this stage in Parliament. Normally in the winding-up it is for the proposer to say, "I will read the Minister’s comments carefully and reflect on them". I ask for the opposite. Will the Front Benches read carefully what the Committee is saying to them and think carefully about what they have heard, which has been a reasoned debate, with reasoned arguments from all round the Committee? Will the noble Baroness and the noble Lords on both Front Benches please think again? I hope that they will support this amendment. In the interim—