Scottish Youth Parliament say Love Equally

On Monday 1 August the Scottish Youth Parliament launched their campaign for marriage equality. Named ‘Love Equally’, the campaign has been set up to put pressure on the Scottish Government regarding civil unions and marriage.

Essentially they want same-sex couples to be allowed to get married (and to call it marriage), mixed-sex couples to be able to have civil partnerships and for religious organisations to be able to perform same-sex marriages legally.

They claim that “Two people who love each other should be able to get married; it’s as simple as that.” Which seems a little unfair on the polyamory community don’t you think?

Even so, it’s a good campaign – similar to the one being run by Katherine Doyle and Tom Freeman of Tom and Kat’s Straight Gay Wedding fame down in England.

Grant Costello, the Chair of the SYP said: “Our message to Scotland is that all laws regarding homosexual relationships, whether male or female, should be equal to those of heterosexual relationships.”

The SYP is the youth branch of the devolved Scottish Parliament. Set up in 1999 it’s democratically elected and aims to represent 14-25 year olds. Although I hadn’t heard of it until I went to university they seem to do a reasonable amount of work and it’s nice to hear that they’ve put the fight for marriage equality as one of their top concerns this year.

Full marriage equality (of this nature, i.e. regardless of sexual orientation and between two people) has been granted so far in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Argentina, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, South Africa and Norway.

So good luck to them and if you happen to see some bright red silicon wedding rings around the place bearing the word ‘LOVE’ now you’ll know what it’s all about.