South West MEP Giles Chichester defends the traditional family in a letter to David Cameron

The traditional family has come under fire during the Cameron administration, according to South West MEP Giles Chichester

Dear David,

I am saddened and disappointed at the number of ways you and your government have chosen to undermine the traditional family. In your 2010 manifesto you promised positive recognition of families through the taxation system. You have so far failed to honour this promise.

Instead your government embarked on an unfair spending cut by proposing the withdrawal of child benefit from all tax payers subject to the higher, marginal rate of 40% income tax in a way which penalises the traditional family model of one earner and one carer while leaving it possible for couples with nearly double the income to remain eligible. Even with the change announced in the budget this still discriminates against the traditional family. I support the principle that higher rate payers should relinquish this benefit but the anomaly makes it unfair and, in particular, unfair to traditional family units.

But the worst way in which you are attacking the traditional family is through your bizarre attempt to redefine marriage. Why you have chosen to push the Stonewall militant gay agenda is a mystery to me because same sex marriage was not in your manifesto and so far as I can tell from friends in the gay community there is no majority within that minority in favour of trying to make same sex unions or partnerships the same as traditional marriage. Equal yes, same no.

I support these civil unions or partnerships having equal rights to traditional marriage so far as property ownership, legal status, taxation and inheritance rights are concerned but cannot agree that being equal must mean being the same. For two obvious reasons these unions or partnerships are not the same, namely a marriage is about a man and woman joined together for the procreation of children.

What you are doing in attempting to redefine marriage is to undermine and affront the traditional majority to no benefit to the gay and lesbian minority. It does not pass the reasonableness test. What you could do is ensure that equality of rights does exist and remedy a wrong that would not be solved by redefining marriage, namely the unfairness of property and inheritance rules for brothers or sisters living together in a household. Or would you invoke the rules on consanguinity on this point?

I ask you to reconsider your position during this consultation period, take full notice of the points that I have made and apply the tests of common sense and reasonableness that are the safeguard of Conservatives. Should this measure go through it will cause many Conservatives to question their loyalty to a party which is no longer supporting values inherent to the party.”

P.S. I have a policy not to sign online petitions.  However I have recently signed the Petition for Marriage at http://c4m.org.uk/ because I feel so strongly about this issue.  I would encourage anyone of like mind to do the same.

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