SCOTLAND: Marriage Decision Soon

The Scottish government has revealed that it will announce its decision on same-sex marriage on July 10th. You may recall that last fall the government solicited public comments on the issue, leading to vicious anti-gay campaigns from the local Catholic Church and several nasty blog posts from NOM.

Cabinet ministers will meet in Edinburgh and announce whether the government will propose a change in the law that would allow gay and straight couples equal access to marriage. Scotland’s public consultation closed in December with over 50,000 responses, making it the largest such consultation of its kind. The government has previously delayed the publication of the results of the consultation once and was subsequently expected to have published in June. Although it is believed equal marriage opponents were able to mobilise more negative responses than marriage proponents, equal marriage enjoys consistent majority support in Scottish polls.