Last night, in a free vote, MSPs approved the general principles of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill. The vote was 98 votes in favour of the bill, 15 votes against and 5 abstentions. A further 9 MSPs were not able to be there – most of them are supporters of the bill also.

You can find the Official Report of the debate here. There is a video of the debate here.

There are lists of how MSPs voted, here.

It would be great if you could contact your MSPs who voted yes, to thank them. Please be polite to the ones who abstained or voted no – they might reconsider!

You can contact your MSPs by entering your postcode here.

Many thanks to everyone who has worked and supported for equal marriage to get the bill to this stage. Next comes stage 2, the Committee amending stage, in December and January, and then the final stage 3, probably in February.

More details of the progress of the bill are available here.