The Government is destroying the meaning of ‘marriage’ by trying to redefine it, Britain’s leading expert on family law says.
Baroness Butler-Sloss, formerly the country’s top family law judge, has previously backed gay adoption and civil partnerships.
But she says redefining marriage is an attack on marriage itself, and many of her colleagues in the House of Lords believe the change would be a “step too far”.
Vote
She has told the Government to stop “faffing around with gay marriage” and focus on other family law matters.
Lady Butler-Sloss will get a chance to vote against the Government’s Bill when it reaches the House of Lords in a few months time.
She said: “I have always spoken in favour of gay relationships and the rights of gay people”.
However she added: “This does seem to me a different issue and one which attacks marriage.”
Destruction
The independent Peer said: “I think it is a destruction of the word ‘marriage’, which has been understood for many years to mean what the Christians say it does”.
“It would not only affect Christians”, she continued, “but it would affect Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and all the other religions.”
And the Peer, who as a judge supported same-sex adoption, also criticised the Government for not including adultery as a ground for same-sex divorce.
Tinkering
Last month political commentator Frederick Forsyth said voters are fed up with change for the sake of change, like the plans to redefine marriage.
Writing in his Daily Express column, he said modernism is ruining Britain and a strong-willed traditionalist government could fix it. But, he says, we don’t have one.
Mr Forsyth said, “great swathes of ordinary British people are sick and tired of the insane tinkering with things that worked perfectly well before the self-styled modernisers, reformers and progressives wrecked them”.