Gender Neutral Marriage Act

"Gays getting married will destroy the sanctity of marriage".

For the past few weeks Finland, well the gay part of Finland, has been talking about the chair person of the law committee telling people she hasn't delayed the Act nor does she think it's important to bring it forward right now. After her rude e-mail replies to questions about the Act were published and Minister level interference came forward, the committee voted on bringing the Act for a vote in the parliament today. They voted against it 9-8. So after a year sitting on her desk, the Act will not be brought to vote. Not this time anyway.

"I do 2013" was established to gather the necessary 50 000 signatures from the citizens of Finland to get this Act into a vote in the Parliament. Vote gathering starts on March 19th, which is the day for equality and will be open for 6 months. They launched their Facebook page today, and as of now they have over 25 000 likes. Facebook totally said I do today!

The names of the committee members who voted no and yes were published today and already a lot of chatter has been heard around the www about what it all means. Someone made a chart of the years they were born and colored them according to their votes. Everyone who voted no were born before 1967 and everyone who voted yes were born after 1967. If you look at the party chart, everyone voting no was from a right wing party. Everyone voting yes was from the left except one who was from the right. Not surprisingly, basic Finns and christian democrats voted no.

I do 2013 stated as their official goal to gather those 50 000 signatures, but today they said they'd updated their goal to 250 000. Depending on which data you believe, 5-20% of people are gay or bi. That means 250 000-1M Finns are in that group. We should have no problem gathering enough signatures for this Act to get it's time in the parliament. I don't know what the highest signature numbers are for a civil Act in Finland, but anything over 100 000 should tell these people that we are serious and we want this. Finland has been lacking in the civil rights movement recently. We need to move with the rest of the world moving forward. Evolve. Show basic human decency. Empathy.

How does me having the right to get married threaten yours?