Equal Love: With This Spreadsheet I Thee Wed

The Guardian online has produced a fun little spreadsheet of the data on civil partnerships in the UK since they were introduced in 2005.
After an initial splurge it's now fallen to 6-7,000, but at present is dropping by about 1,000 a year - at this rate maybe there will be none in 2016.
One thing that stands out is the numbers for male and female "formations" are roughly the same, but women are about twice as likely to dissolve their CPs as men are.
The website for the Equal Love campaign - OutRage's legal bid to overturn the twin bans on same-sex civil marriage and opposite-sex civil partnerships. Equality for all, gay and straight - is here.
The Independent today has a great article by Joan Smith; 'Even the ancient Romans had different forms of marriage'
"...I'm sure Tony Blair meant well when he introduced civil partnerships, but it has become clear that he landed us with is a typical New Labour fudge. Now he has taken himself off to the Catholic Church, we are sorely in need of bolder, braver and more modern politicians to clear up the mess."
Quite.

The illustration is from the Australian group also called Equal Love, who are campaigning for same-sex marriage. It's hard to illustrate a story about gay marriage without having another sodding stock photo of two mini groom figurines atop of a wedding cake.

Newsflash! Stonewall - Riot Cancelled

The silly buggers at Stonewall have finally decided they do believe in equality and have come out for gay marriage.
From the press release today. "Stonewall is pleased to be widening its campaigning objectives to include extending the legal form of marriage to gay people. Our policy position on this is as below:
"‘We seek to secure marriage for gay people as a civil vehicle on the same basis as heterosexual marriage, available in a registry office but without a mandate on religious organisations to celebrate it. We seek to retain civil partnerships for lesbian and gay people recognising their special and unique status.’"
What took you so long? Actually, you may not want to answer that.
Anyway, they're just in time to join the new Equal Love campaign.
Except Stonewall won't sign up to that - as it's campaigning for gay marriage and different-sex civil partnerships, which Stonewall don't support.
Oops!