My Lords, my noble friend Lady Thornton speaking from the Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Alli have argued, no doubt persuasively in their view, that the current protections are adequate: the Equality Act is in place. However, in my judgment that contention is belied, first, by the fact that a number of leading counsel take a contrary view and say that the protections are not adequate, and, secondly, by the fact of some of the cases, some of which have already been cited. We will come to the registrar later, as well as the chaplain to the police and other such cases. It would be helpful if we could have a response from the Minister that these cases would in fact have received protection under government Amendment 53 and any other protections which the Government may seek to provide.
My own starting point is clear: as a House, we should seek to protect minorities from what is, sometimes, the tyranny of the majority. We can refer to the wonderful literature on this, such as by Mill and de Tocqueville. I would recommend all colleagues to read and re-read what they say about the tyranny of the majority. Surely, part of our duty is to ensure—so far as we are able—that minorities are protected. In this case, we seek to protect and to give dignity and equal rights to a minority in our country. I would hope that those in this minority would also see the importance of giving protection to another minority—those who think highly of traditional marriage as defined.