UK PM Urged To Delay Gay Marriage Vote

Senior local Conservative members urge British Prime Minister David Cameron to postpone decision on same sex marriage, saying the issue may hinder efforts for a re-election in 2015.

LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FEBRUARY 3, 2013) (ITN) -  Members of British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party urged him on Sunday (February 3) to delay a parliamentary vote this week on gay marriage, warning the issue could weaken the party and harm his chances of re-election.

Cameron has pledged his personal support for a gay marriage bill but many in his party and among his legislators oppose it on moral grounds and say the government has no mandate to push it through parliament.As the bill is supported by Britain's two other main parties, opposition Labour andConservative coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, it is in no danger of being defeated.

But a letter signed by 25 past and present chairmen of local Conservative associations was handed in to Cameron's Downing Street residence on Sunday afternoon by six of the signatories.

"We feel very strongly that the decision to bring this bill before parliament has been made without adequate debate or consultation with either the membership of theConservative Party or with the country at large," the letter said.

It added: "Resignations from the party are beginning to multiply and we fear that, if enacted, this bill will lead to significant damage to the Conservative Party in the run-up to the 2015 election."

One Conservative association leader, Geoffrey Vero, said Cameron should have taken the issue more slowly.

"There is considerable upset within the party that this matter which wasn't either in the manifesto, the mandate or the Queen speech, has been presented as a bill to Parliament in such a rush and we would have liked the matter to have been very much more fully discussed and debated," Vero said.

"We are great believers in Conservative principles and policies, and we wish to see aConservative government re-elected in 2015 and we think this is a diversive issue, which we would have preferred not to have come up in this Parliament," he added.

The proposals, due to come into effect in England and Wales in 2014, will also allow civil partners to convert their partnership to a marriage and enable married people to change their legal gender without having to end their union.

Gay marriage supporters say that while the existing civil partnerships for same-sex couples give the same legal rights as marriage, the distinction implies that they are inferior.

Cameron himself said two months ago: "I'm a massive supporter of marriage and I don't want gay people to be excluded from a great institution."

But the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches are both strongly opposed and the bill will not force them to conduct gay marriages.

Other religious groups, such as Quakers and liberal Jewish groups, could choose to marry gays, but under the proposals no individual minister would be compelled to wed a same-sex couple.

After the expected approval in the Commons on Tuesday (February 5), the bill will move to parliament's upper house, the House of Lords, which is expected to vote on it in May before the bill returns to the Commons for a second vote.