UK News 14-11-2000 Lords Reject Gay Sex Age Limit who: The House of Lords what: Reject reduction in gay age of consent where: House of Lords, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Gay sex will be legal for 16 and 17-year-olds by the end of the month," proclaims The Times this morning, "after ministers prepared take on peers in a constitutional showdown." For the third time, the government`s attempt to lower the homosexual age of content from 18 to 16 was defeated by the House of Lords yesterday when the Sexual Offences Bill was effectively rejected by a majority of 61 votes. But the government now plans to employ the little-used Parliament Act to force the Bill into the statute books. Lady Young, the Tory who leads the campaign against equalising the age of consent, says that 16-year-olds are children in law and must be protected from the dangers of abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. She believes that lowering the age of consent does not have popular support. "The Bill was not even in the Labour Party manifesto," she said yesterday. "The Parliament Acts were intended for matters of great national constitutional importance, not for gay rights." "An equal age of consent is just and fair," counters gay rights campaigner Angela Mason from Stonewall. "The Commons and the majority of professional medical, legal and childcare opinion support it. Baroness Young must now accept the will of the elected house." [... more]

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