Members of the Scottish Parliament have been handed a petition proposing that the existing law on adultery should be amended, in order to cater to same-sex couples.
The legal definition on adultery has come into question following the introduction of same-sex marriage.
One campaign group, Equality Network, which backed the campaign for same-sex marriage, is now pushing to scrap adultery altogether.
Sad and reckless
But a pro-marriage group have hit back at the proposition, insisting that getting rid of adultery in the law would send a message that ‘faithfulness doesn’t matter’.
A spokesman for traditional marriage group Scotland for Marriage said: “Scrapping adultery would send out the message that faithfulness within marriage doesn’t matter.
“What a desperately sad and reckless thing that would be.”
Definition
Currently, adultery can only take place between a man and a woman in the eyes of the law in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK.
As a result proponents of same-sex marriage argue that having no definition of adultery in same-sex marriage amounts to a breach of “human rights”.
Equality Network said: “The best way to do away with the anomaly, if that is felt necessary, would in our view be to abandon the specific term adultery, and deal with all sexual infidelity under unreasonable behaviour.”
Warned
Last year, MPs and lawyers warned that the concept of adultery could be removed from the law if the Government pushed ahead with its plans to redefine marriage.
David Burrowes MP said that the Government had “opened up a Pandora’s box”.
He said: “It has been a fundamental principle of marriage that it is based around exclusive sexual fidelity and that is what the redefinition of marriage would remove.”