U.K.: Laws Introduced to Accommodate a Gay King or Queen

[Newsjock]

Source: The Advocate

As Prince William and Princess Kate endure the final throes of pregnancy, Parliament is working on legislation to ensure that their first-born child will be able to rule, no matter their sexual orientation.

Parliament will pass legislation to allow the royal couple's child to rule the United Kingdom whether the child is male or female. Labor MP Paul Flynn has an amendment to support an openly gay king or queen.

The law would determine the heir of the gay king or queen and their spouse or civil partner, as long as they were born through artificial insemination or surrogacy, according to Pink News. An adopted child would not legally be able to inherit the throne, now would they join the line of succession, under current law. Furthermore, the king or queen's same-sex partner would be recognized as king consort or queen consort.

Read more: http://www.advocate.com/news/world-news/2013/01/22/uk-laws-introduced-accommodate-gay-king-or-queen

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. However, there are other countries to consider

and, as this report points out, the chances of getting this through all are fairly small:

None of the amendments are likely to succeed, however, because of the fraught negotiations with other Commonwealth countries which have to be finalised before there can be any change to the constitutional arrangements around the monarchy.

The succession to the crown bill, which will be debated tomorrow, has taken years to finalise. It ends the priority given to male heirs, so an elder sister would have priority over a younger male sibling.

It also allows heirs to the throne to marry a Catholic and ends the requirement for most members of the royal family to obtain permission from the Queen before marrying.

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/01/21/royal-succession-what-happens-if-a-gay-monarch-adopts-a-chil

There are people objecting to the "allowed to marry a Catholic" bit (even Prince Charles seems to think it's a problem; some people are insistent that any Catholic spouse would insist of bringing up any children as Catholics, thus causing future problems), even though that seems very straight-forward. Just as the Church of England drags its feet on any LGBT equality, partly because of some other Anglican countries that object, I think this will get rejected as "too difficult to get all the other countries to agree".