h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When even people on the right are in favour of sexual equality - Steven Norris for example - I think Labour is in safe ground. Most of the British electorate is pro-equality. There are many that do have homophobic feelings. However, they would probably relate to Norman Tebbit, which rules out any chance of them ever voting for a Socialist party. So even if this legislation does slightly dent Labour's vote (which I seriously doubt), it is a major step towards equality.
(By the way, for those who say that the Parliament Act has been over used, here's a fact for you. Under the five years of Wilson's Labour goverments, there was more legislation blocked by the Lords than in the eighteen years of Tory goverment to follow. Coincidence? I think not! )

They were damned if they did and damned if they didn't....
If the Labour party hadn't enforced this law, they would have lost voters who voted for them on the strength of the promise in their manifseto. If they had enforced it (which they finally did) they might lose voters who oppose it.
But how about this for a question: maybe they should have raised the age of consent for hetrosexual sex to 18. Everyone I know who is over the age of 14 is "doing it" anyway, if it was 18 maybe those under 16 might just have second thoughts...........
We'll see in May what everyone thinks though.

I think it's a good move - the ages of consent should be equal if we can even pretend to live in an equal, non-discriminatory society. And raising the heterosexual age of consent would have been a much less popular move.

And what right has anybody to say homosexuality is wrong anyway? Just because it doesn't make babies doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, in this overpopulated world it might be good. Less babies = less people = more space = more food = more chance of the species surviving. That may sound odd, but you can have too many people, you know.