Manx history is made tomorrow

Tomorrow one of the few decent men in Manx politics will make history. Allan Bell is (finally) due to move the Civil Partnership Bill that his knuckledragging colleagues have delayed for years.
Yes folks. Go to http://www.tynwald.org.im/papers/orders/2009-2010/ko23022010.pdf , read Item 3, and weep!
For the text of the Bill itself, go to http://www.tynwald.org.im/papers/bills/current/b048-1.pdf.
We can expect to see the House’s resident retard, John Houghton, trying to delay matters with more of his usual idiot questions earlier in the day. But the fun won’t really start until debate over the clauses begins later in the year, at which point just spot the liars and hypocrites in action.
For example, expect some porkies over the question of consultation with faith groups. There wasn’t any, whatever Sentamu’s Apprentice and his allies try to suggest. None of the island’s major churches debated the issue, the congregations were just told what they think. The government’s idea of ‘consultation’ was a nod from Churches Together in Mann’s executive, which is simply (in theory) the heads of the four major churches taking a decision without consulting their flocks.
I say in theory, because in fact the four never meet. Two of them hate each other so much they both ring ahead to check the other won’t be there, and later all four agree to put out a joint, pre-agreed, statement on the relevant ‘moral issue’ to continue the illusion of unity.
Other faiths weren’t consulted full stop, because at the point when they should have been some years back a senior Anglican told Government there weren’t any other faiths on the island, therefore it was a waste of time to seek their opinion about whether they might like to conduct religious civil partnership ceremonies.
As it happens, at least one group did say they would like to conduct them, and submitted detailed evidence on failures in UK government consultations and also amendments and missed opportunities when the Marriage Act was amended in Scotland. You won’t hear about that either, as you can tell immediately from the lack of any of the suggestions in either the present Civil Partnership Bill or last year’s amendments to the Marriage Act, which instead of changing anything significant merely increased the number of places where a superstitious halfwit can legalise your marriage if you’re still sad enough to get married on the Isle of Man instead of a civilised country – Scotland for example.
We can also expect either Sentamu’s Apprentice or another of the afflicted to raise the issue of ‘conscience clauses’ for the registrars. This was cooked up years ago on advice from CARE, the sicko Christian lobby group who so kindly gave a job to the daughter a Manx government minister, a notoriously unemployable wierdo who would only work for Jeebus.
‘Coincidentally’, whenever the first attempts at registering a partnership are made on the island, we can expect a local registrar to try and pull that clause, acting on advice contained in a letter originally written by CARE and mailed to all UK registrars, and which has since formed the basis of various attempts to derail civil partnerships in the UK.
But all that is a long away away. Tomorrow, just enjoy the rare sight of a Manx politician doing something decent for a change.