Ed Miliband: new Labour Party leader

Ed Miliband, the new leader of the Labour Party, has become the first British political leader of a major party to be living with his family out of wedlock.

Critics have raised concerns about Mr Miliband’s stance on traditional marriage after he pledged last month to redefine marriage and impose it on society.

It also emerged earlier this week that Mr Miliband’s name is missing from his son Daniel’s birth certificate because, according to one of his spokeswomen, he didn’t have time to fill in the form.

Free speech

Mr Miliband says he is “angry” that there is a free speech law that allows people to express their opposition to homosexual conduct.

He wants the law repealed because he claims the protection would make it harder to convict murderers.

But earlier this year Mr Miliband did admit that Labour had been wrong to ignore public concerns about the proliferation of lap-dancing clubs and betting shops in high streets.

And he has attacked the longstanding safeguard which bans blood donations from men who have engaged in sex with men.

Redefine

During his five years in Parliament Mr Miliband has voted in favour of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which restrict religious liberty, and he voted to abolish the blasphemy laws in England and Wales.

Throughout the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in 2008, Mr Miliband voted against reducing the abortion limit from 24 weeks, against a ban on creating saviour siblings and creating animal-human hybrid embryos, and against keeping the requirement to consider a child’s need for a father before fertility treatment.

Last month Mr Miliband declared his support for same-sex marriage, insisting a Labour Party led by him would campaign to change the definition of marriage and enforce it throughout the nation.

Protection

He told homosexual news website PinkNews: “I want to see heterosexual and same-sex partnerships put on an equal basis and a Labour Party that I lead will campaign to make gay marriage happen.”

On the free speech protection, known as the Waddington amendment, Mr Miliband claimed it would make it “harder to convict someone for killing someone because of their sexuality than for their skin colour”.

The protection was inserted by Parliament to a sexual orientation ‘hate crime’ law following a string of alarming cases where Christians had been investigated by the police for their beliefs about sexual ethics. It has been backed by Parliament on four occasions.

Litigation

Throughout his article Mr Miliband put emphasis on his commitment to the homosexual agenda.

He voiced his support for attempts to radically redefine the nature of marriage in the UK.

But critics fear that legalising same-sex marriage could cause a surge in litigation against those groups and individuals who hold to the traditional definition of marriage.

Mr Miliband also continues to oppose the safeguard to stop men who have had sex with men giving blood, even though the National Blood Service has previously warned that overturning the current ban on donations would “result in a fivefold increase in the risk of HIV-infected blood entering the blood supply”.

Challenge

In June Mr Miliband said local residents should have more power to challenge unwanted businesses such as lap-dancing clubs in their communities.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph he said: “People have views about their town centres and whether it should be the lap-dancing club followed by the betting shop, followed by the late-night bar.”

He added: “For too long, the character of local communities has been changed.

“Social democrats do want to conserve some things. We weren’t willing enough to say so.”

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