Gay marriage thread

[MrGongGong]

They may be a group of deluded nutters to you, but they still came within a smidgeon of having their first MP.

Still deluded nutters even if lots of people think they are right.

[scottycelt]

Would you care to unravel that one for me please scoty - you're much more au fait with the subtle meanings of 'bigot' and 'politically correct' than I could ever hope to be

That's very true, amsey ... but the thought of trying to unravel for you that which has never even been ravelled seems just too much of an unwelcome and almost certainly hopeless challenge right now ... and Real Madrid are playing Barcelona and Mr Murdoch has very kindly provided live TV coverage for me ... so sorry boyo, you'll just have to be patient and stand in an orderly queue for your personal enlightenment just like everyone else around here.

[Mr Pee]

Still deluded nutters even if lots of people think they are right.

So are all the people who think they are right also deluded nutters? Or do you simply dismiss them as such because you fundamentally disagree with UKIP? It's not much of an advert for parliamentary democracy to patronisingly dismiss the party that came second in a by-election as deluded nutters, and therefore by implication also dismiss the concerns of the people who voted for them. But then you always have done patronising pretty well.

[MrGongGong]

So are all the people who think they are right also deluded nutters? Or do you simply dismiss them as such because you fundamentally disagree with UKIP? It's not much of an advert for parliamentary democracy to patronisingly dismiss the party that came second in a by-election as deluded nutters, and therefore by implication also dismiss the concerns of the people who voted for them. But then you always have done patronising pretty well.

get out the green clarinet

how on earth you think that because I think that the kippers are deluded that I think that everyone who thinks they are right is also deluded I don't know.
what's so great about a "democratic" system that has those who have a tiny minority supporting them deciding what happens ?
When the Kippers and their like start campaigning in favour of abolition of the monarchy and unelected house of Lords then I might start to take their "democratic" concerns seriously
but really they all are a bunch of self obsessed idiots

so i thought I would check out the statistics
the kippers got 27.8% of the votes cast
which as the turnout was 52% of those eligible to vote
about 14.45% of those eligible to vote
what a great result

which equates to a U grade if it was an A level exam

[Beef Oven]

My solicitor has advised me to issue the following statement: "I'm not a deluded nutter".

Thank you.

[MrGongGong]

My solicitor has advised me to issue the following statement: "I'm not a deluded nutter".

Thank you.

Your solicitor might advise that
but I know you have listened to Metal Machine Music and "enjoyed" it
so I guess we are in the same category then

[Beef Oven]

Your solicitor might advise that
but I know you have listened to Metal Machine Music and "enjoyed" it
so I guess we are in the same category then

Hang on, have I misunderstood? Does this mean that you are a Ukipper?

.

[MrGongGong]

Hang on, have I misunderstood? Does this mean that you are a Ukipper?

.

Not in 1,000,000 years
I'm off to Estonia later this month for an electroacoustic gig
then Portugal
then i'm going to Arbroath to get some smokies
and a few other EU gigs

If the Kippers had their way none of that would be possible

so no

(but I do think the MMM is a work of genius )

[scottycelt]

I'll try again.

Surely people vote UKIP because they want Britain to leave the EU? That's the point of UKIP (hence its name).

Admittedly it appeals to people who are generally against immigration to the UK (from Europe and outside Europe), but that's connected: because we're in the EU, the UKIP line goes, thousands of Rumanians and Bulgarians will arrive here and, because we're in the EU, there's nothing we can do about it.

If UKIP was the Say No to Gay Marriage Party do you honestly think they'd have come second in the Eastleigh by-election?

Any chance of an answer from you?

Sorry, never, ever imagined for one moment that you were desperately hanging about waiting for one ... I do apologise!

Do you think everyone who votes for UKIP in a by-election automatically wants the UK to leave the EU?

Tactical voting is one obvious reason why voters plump for particular candidates. It was a by-election and there also will be a hefty protest vote against the ruling party(s). The Lib Dem vote was also slashed. They won courtesy of the protest vote going to UKIP. There is no reason to believe that the C4M (which FF apparently didn't realise even existed) didn't have an effect on the vote as it actively campaigned in the election handing out leaflets. If some Lib Dems were blissfully unaware of their very presence no wonder some voters throw their hands up in despair that their voices are simply ignored and therefore never heard.

I've already said I'd have been sorely tempted to vote for UKIP as a protest against all three main parties, and I certainly don't want the UK to leave the EU. People can vote quite differently in by-elections from the mind-concentrating reality of a general election!

Obviously quite a few voters in Eastleigh wanted to give the three main parties "a bloody nose" whether their motivation was the issue of 'gay marriage' or not.

If 55% of voters voted for non 'pro-gay marriage' candidates why should you express any surprise that one of them managed to come second? Nobody expected UKIP to do so well or George Galloway in his by-election, for that matter.

I suspect a single candidate standing on a Say No To 'Gay Marriage' might have fared rather better than you appear to imagine. However for everyone who did vote for that candidate there probably would be twice as many who would have voted for alternative suitable candidates thinking they would have a better chance of success

After all, I'm sure there are many, many more practising Christians in Eastleigh than those who actually plumped for the Christian candidate and, for that matter, beer-guzzling, heavy smoking libertines who solemnly cast their votes for the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party.

[Beef Oven]

Not in 1,000,000 years
I'm off to Estonia later this month for an electroacoustic gig
then Portugal
then i'm going to Arbroath to get some smokies
and a few other EU gigs

If the Kippers had their way none of that would be possible

so no

(but I do think the MMM is a work of genius )

Mozart was a genius. MMM is a work put together by some very talented people. I think we can agree on this

[Julien Sorel]

Do you think everyone who votes for UKIP in a by-election automatically wants the UK to leave the EU?

I suppose some of them might have been drunk or stoned and put their cross in the wrong place, but otherwise if they weren't why on earth would they vote UKIP? The UK leaving the EU is what UKIP is for. That and being against immigration, of course, for people who don't think the Tories aren't against immigration enough.

I've already said I'd have been sorely tempted to vote for UKIP as a protest against all three main parties, and I certainly don't want the UK to leave the EU.

That would be a daft thing to do then, wouldn't it? Given that UKIP exists to campaign for the UK leaving the EU.

I don't appear to imagine anything about how a no to 'Gay Marriage' party would have got on: I am absolutely certain that it wouldn't have got much beyond the Raving Looney Party. Do you really think otherwise?

[french frank]

Do you think everyone who votes for UKIP in a by-election automatically wants the UK to leave the EU?

No. Voters can be that stupid.

Tactical voting is one obvious reason why voters plump for particular candidates. It was a by-election and there also will be a hefty protest vote against the ruling party(s). The Lib Dem vote was also slashed. They won courtesy of the protest vote going to UKIP.

No. They were expected to win (bookies favourite, council = 44 councillors, 40 Lib Dems, 4 Cons) and they did.

There is no reason to believe that the C4M (which FF apparently didn't realise even existed) didn't have an effect on the vote as it actively campaigned in the election handing out leaflets. If some Lib Dems were blissfully unaware of their very presence no wonder some voters throw their hands up in despair that their voices are simply ignored and therefore never heard.

But I (since I appear to be the 'some Lib Dems' whom you mention) wasn't in Eastleigh for the byelection. Otherwise, I don't think they have a very high profile, do they?.

People can vote quite differently in by-elections from the mind-concentrating reality of a general election!

True but silly.

If 55% of voters voted for non 'pro-gay marriage' candidates

But Eastleigh has been a LD-Tory marginal - Huhne's majority in 2005 was 568 and less than 4,000 in 2010) for some years so that traditional Tory vote (which was only just passed by UKIP) was unlikely to have had much to do with gay marriage.

After all, I'm sure there are many, many more practising Christians in Eastleigh than those who actually plumped for the Christian candidate and, for that matter, beer-guzzling, heavy smoking libertines who solemnly cast their votes for the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party.

It's true the so-called 'Christian' candidate came behind the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party, but if you see the manifesto of the 'Christian Party', it doesn't appear to correspond with the official views of any Christian church in the UK and its policies make it a surprise it came in ahead of the Monster Raving Loonies and the Elvis Loves Pets parties.

The whole byelection was unusual. It's a marginal held by a governing party but where you might expect it to have been automatically lost, the challenger was also a governing party and the official opposition stood no chance at all. With the incumbent party rocked by two scandals at the same time, it was always open for a protest party to do well. UKIP was a respectable 'also ran' in the general election and was the only obvious protest vote. You yourself say you'd have been 'sorely tempted' to vote UKIP - a party with whose major policy plank you disagree - as a protest, which just shows how irrational voters can be.

[Pabmusic]

I reckon it wouldn't only be liberals who might frown at Leviticus 20: 10 being put into practice.

And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

There just isn't room to do this justice. Here's commandments that Jews and Christians should obey, but that our law has taken it upon itself to condemn:

Leviticus 20:9 - For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.

Or Deutoronomy 21;18-21 - If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And that's just the start [continues beyond p. 94].

[Mr Pee]

get out the green clarinet


When the Kippers and their like start campaigning in favour of abolition of the monarchy and unelected house of Lords then I might start to take their "democratic" concerns seriously

Ah. So in a nutshell, deluded nuttery is OK as long as it fits with Mr GG's deluded nuttery.

Glad you've cleared that one up.

And as for your whingeing about proportion of votes cast etc., the fact is that UKIP were second. Get over it. I dare say that had second place been taken by the deluded nuttery of, say, the "Respect" party, you would have been more than happy. It's really rather pathetic to blame the system just because the result is not to your liking.

[scottycelt]

No. Voters can be that stupid.

Correct on the first, not so sure about the 'stupidity' charge. It's a protest vote at a by-election which is quite different from a more realistic one of relative "conviction" at a general election. That's why we tend to get different results.

No. They were expected to win (bookies favourite, council = 44 councillors, 40 Lib Dems, 4 Cons) and they did. But I (since I appear to be the 'some Lib Dems' whom you mention) wasn't in Eastleigh for the byelection. Otherwise, I don't think they have a very high profile, do they?.

Maybe, but I never said it was any great surprise that the LIb Dems succeeded. I merely stated that their vote has been slashed which it was. In terms of votes gained the only real winners were UKIP. I also hinted that if UKIP hadn't taken most votes from the Tories (a reasonable assumption) the result would have been quite different. I agree that the C4M group tends to go about its business in a relatively quiet, unassuming way in stark contrast to some of the shouting and bawling from its 'liberal' (small "l") opponents. I did express some surprise that you were unaware of the group's existence.

True but silly.

Again I don't necessarily hold with the 'silly' charge. If you're right, there must be thousands of 'silly' and 'stupid' people casting their votes at by-elections. Voters merely weigh up the pros and cons and then decide on what they consider to be the best way to use their votes. Many voters are not slavishly tied to a party label and are well aware of the value of tactical voting if that might prove to be a more potent message directed at the powers-that-be than any of the alternatives.

But Eastleigh has been a LD-Tory marginal - Huhne's majority in 2005 was 568 and less than 4,000 in 2010) for some years so that traditional Tory vote (which was only just passed by UKIP) was unlikely to have had much to do with gay marriage. .

Hmm. We know that Tory 'traditionalists' tend to be against 'gay marriage' (according to all polls). Other issues like immigration, jobs etc have been around for years yet UKIP has never previously benefited like it did at Eastleigh. I don't think it 'unlikely' at all that a considerable number of votes were switched on the marriage issue. Tory MPs in particular attest to the many letters they have received in opposition to the Bill. Of course, neither of us will ever really know ...

The whole byelection was unusual. It's a marginal held by a governing party but where you might expect it to have been automatically lost, the challenger was also a governing party and the official opposition stood no chance at all. With the incumbent party rocked by two scandals at the same time, it was always open for a protest party to do well. UKIP was a respectable 'also ran' in the general election and was the only obvious protest vote. You yourself say you'd have been 'sorely tempted' to vote UKIP - a party with whose major policy plank you disagree - as a protest, which just shows how irrational voters can be.

That's basically what I've been saying all along but yet again I cannot concur with your last statement.

On the surface it is wholly illogical to vote for UKIP if one is ardently pro-EU. However we are talking about a by-election and you have acknowledged the protest nature of much of the vote at Eastleigh. Voting for UKIP at a by-election is not going to mean immediate UK withdrawal from the EU. I suspect that every person who is at all interested in casting a vote is also intelligent enough to know that.

Therefore however seemingly illogical a protest vote (is) it is certainly not necessarily 'irrational'. Quite clearly, it all seems a pretty rational thing to do by thousands of voters at by-elections, including myself on the very odd occasion!