Gay marriage campaigns launched in Scotland

A campaign group opposed to legalising gay marriage is planning to deliver leaflets to almost 300,000 homes ahead of this week's council elections.

Scotland for Marriage said it hoped to leaflet every house in Glasgow at a cost of £15,000.

But a separate coalition of faith groups will launch their own campaign on Monday backing a change in the law.

The Scottish government has said it "tends towards the view" that same-sex marriages should be introduced.

It is currently considering the responses it received to a public consultation on the issue, and has said faith groups and their celebrants should not be obliged to solemnise the ceremonies.

In January, political leaders signed a pledge to support a campaign to legalise gay marriage.

Leaders of the Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Conservative parties signed up at an event at Holyrood which was marked with a specially-created "equal marriage" cake.

Scotland for Marriage is gathering a petition calling for the current definition of marriage to be maintained.

Among those to have signed it are Britain's most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, and the former SNP leader Gordon Wilson.

The group, which is backed by organisations including the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland, the Christian Institute, the Evangelical Alliance and Destiny Churches, said it also planned to use mobile advertising vans to put across its opposition to same-sex weddings.

Meanwhile, the Faith in Marriage campaign will hand over an open letter to MSPs at Holyrood demanding the right to conduct same-sex marriages.

Members of the coalition include, among others, the United Reformed Church, the Quakers, Buddhists and the Pagan Federation.

The coalition agrees that religious bodies that do not wish to conduct same-sex marriages should not have to.

But it argues that opponents of same-sex marriage are actually attempting to "impose their views on all other faith groups and the rest of society".

In their joint letter, the coalition warns that it would "strongly oppose" any attempt to restrict same-sex marriage to civil-only ceremonies.

Instead, they are seeking assurances from MSPs that any proposed legislation will "protect and extend" freedom of religion and belief by giving religious and humanist bodies that do want to conduct same-sex marriage the right to do so.