Members of the Scottish Parliament in late October were handed a petition proposing that the existing law on adultery should be amended, to cater for same sex couples.
The legal definition of adultery has come into question following the introduction of same sex marriage. Currently, adultery can only take place between a man and a woman in the eyes of the law in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK. As a result, proponents of same sex marriage argue that having no definition of adultery in same sex marriage amounts to a breach of ‘human rights’.
Scrap the law
One campaign group, Equality Network, which backed the campaign for same sex marriage, is now pushing to scrap adultery altogether. But a pro-marriage group have hit back at the proposition, insisting that getting rid of adultery in the law would send a message that ‘faithfulness doesn’t matter’. A spokesman for traditional marriage group Scotland for Marriage said: ‘Scrapping adultery would send out the message that faithfulness within marriage doesn’t matter. What a desperately sad and reckless thing that would be’.
