Lib Dem Peer defies Cameron on Marriage

Well, I'd hardly call it true defiance, more proving a point.

The Conservatives want a return of good old fashioned family values, nothing wrong with that, and especially after the Riots they want to see parenting coming back into play and family units actually working rather than parents allowing their children to do whatever and not taking part in society proper. To encourage this David Cameron has said, when the state can afford it, that he would like to look into giving married couples a tax break.

Today in the House of Lords, Bishop of Wakefield asked Lord McNally (the Libdem Justice minister) to give the house reassurances that the Coalition will encourage marriage to which Lord McNally refused.

"One goes out on to very thin ice. I am not sure that it is for a government to promote marriage any more than it is for them to promote any other relationship,
They say Elizabeth Taylor was in favour of marriage because she got married eight times."

This is very true. As a married man I am all for tax breaks for my family but why should I receive a tax break just for those reasons yet a couple in a long term relationship with two children that are unmarried do not? What of civil partnerships and gay couples that cohabit? Why should they not receive the same benefit as a married heterosexual couple?

If it isn't one rule for all it shouldn't pass. A sheet of paper that officiates a marriage doesn't mean that a couple love each other more than a couple that stayed unmarried. I've known couples who have been together for years but after getting married they've lasted six months. My parents were married for ten years before divorce but lived separately for three years and my mother worked damn hard to bring my sister and I up well and she did a fantastic job on her own. Why shouldn't she get a tax break?
Priti Patel MP commented that "His (Lord McNally) comments are surprising. Marriage is the bedrock of our society."

I thought it was common law, freedom and equality that formed the bedrock of society an at the centre of that family rather than a piece of paper. Who is to say what constitutes a strong family unit?