Thousands of people who responded to the Government’s consultation on same-sex marriage have had their responses blocked by the Government’s anti-hacking software.
Over 4,100 responses made using the website for the Coalition for Marriage campaign have been rejected as “spam” by the Government’s IT system, with the figure representing 40 per cent of the total responses received.
The Coalition for Marriage campaign calls on the Government to retain the current legal definition of marriage as that between one man and one woman.
The Home Office insists that the problem, which has now been rectified, occurred due to an “IT glitch”.
Sham
The Government’s consultation on the introduction of same-sex marriage has already been strongly criticised for being a “sham” exercise that will not take into account opposing views.
Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has claimed that same-sex marriage will be introduced by 2015 regardless of any opposition. And the consultation document itself assumes throughout that such a policy will be introduced.
The Campaign Director for the Coalition for Marriage, Colin Hart, previously stated:
“I always thought that a consultation was about listening to people and asking them their views, before making a decision. Not only are they redefining the meaning of marriage, they're redefining the meaning of consultation.
“This consultation is a sham. It is being pushed through despite the public never having a say on this change. None of the main political parties proposed redefining marriage in their manifestos and the impact assessment misses out many of the possible problems that could occur if this institution is redefined, for example how this change will affect our schools.”
Comment
Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, said:
“There has been vast opposition to the Government’s plans from the public and also from many leaders across the board in public life. There is no democratic mandate to redefine marriage, and to do so is a huge mistake."
"I would encourage everyone who is concerned with the Government's plans to submit a response to the consultation using the link below and also to sign the petition."
C4M
Over half a million people have now signed the Coalition of Marriage petition in defence of traditional marriage, whereas a petition supporting the Government’s proposals has attracted just over 50,000 signatures.
Act now
At Christian Concern we are calling on each and every one of our supporters to submit a response to the Government consultation on redefining marriage.
In order to make it easy we have prepared an online form that submits the answers directly to the Government for you. The form should take approximately 5 minutes. Users will then have an option to send their answers directly to their local MP.
Source
Resources