UK Conservatives to Consider Gay Marriage

In a Sunday meeting with U.K. gay rights activists, Conservative Party politician George Osborne said the Tories would be "very happy" to consider adopting marriage equality in the country if elected.

The meeting, which included prominent gay rights leader Peter Tatchell, was held prior to a rally outside Conservative Party headquarters to protest remarks made last week by one party member who asserted that bed-and-breakfast proprietors should have the right to refuse lodging to gay and lesbian couples, the BBC reports.

Tatchell, however, was reportedly unimpressed with the Tories' olive branch meeting, calling Osborne's intentions "good" but "weak on coherent policy."

The U.K. general election is scheduled for May 6.

Also in the meeting was Nick Herbert, a gay Conservative Party member who spoke in a February panel discussion on gays and conservatism at the Cato Institute with Andrew Sullivan and National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher, as reported in a recent Advocate column by James Kirchick.