FIRST Minister Alex Salmond has been accused of being timid over his response to gay marriage.
He faced a demand by LibDem leader Willie Rennie yesterday not to prejudge a consultation on gay marriage but then said he should give a guarantee that it would be introduced in Scotland.
Mr Rennie seized on a statement by US President Barack Obama that he believed "same-sex couples should be able to get married" and cited similar comments by Prime Minister David Cameron.
The LibDem leader said Mr Salmond's response was "timid", quoting gay SNP MSP Alyn Smith as saying "too many politicians are too equivocal on this".
He said: "Why has the First Minister chosen to be one of the equivocal people rather than joining proudly the progressive world leaders in support of equal marriage?"
Mr Salmond said: "I don't know if Willie actually believes that David Cameron is a progressive world leader, but if he does then it explains the vast overwhelming departure of any semblance of a Liberal Democrat Party."
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereCommments are closed on this article