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BBC: MP attacks Tory adoption stance - Liberal Democrat health spokesman and MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Dr Evan Harris, said Tory pronouncements showed the party was failing to modernise.
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Guardian: Lords back gay adoption rights - Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent. Campaigners for homosexual rights unexpectedly triumphed last night in the House of Lords when peers voted by 215 to 184, a majority of 21, to give homosexual and unmarried heterosexual couples the right to adopt.
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Times: Peers back adoption by unmarried couples - Greg Hurst, parliamentary correspondent. Peers cleared the way last night for unmarried couples to become eligible to adopt children jointly after an attempt led by the Conservative front bench to block change was defeated.
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BBC: View from the Tory grassroots - The reaction from Conservative Party members across the UK to Iain Duncan Smith's appeal for unity after the adoption vote. Video clips from IDS, Ann Widdecombe, Francis Maude and Andrew Marr.
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Guardian: Portillo in Tory revolt on adoption - Iain Duncan Smith faced an open revolt against his leadership of the Tory party last night when Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clarke led a group of eight high profile Conservative MPs who defied a three-line whip on the touchstone issue of gay adoption. A further 35 Tory MPs failed to support Mr Duncan Smith in the division lobbies as he attempted to block unmarried heterosexual and gay couples from adopting.
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Guardian: Tories fail adoption test - Leader. What was at stake in last night's vote, which comfortably restored the clause, removed by the Lords, allowing unmarried couples to adopt, was the new caring image that the Conservatives had striven so hard to project at their annual conference last month. What emerged was the uncaring, intolerant and uninformed old party. It is no use the party saying it values all families, then rejecting certain forms.
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Guardian: Tory rebel accuses MPs of ignorance - Nicholas Watt and John Carvel. John Bercow, the arch Tory moderniser, yesterday mounted a passionate defence of his decision to resign from the shadow cabinet over his party's opposition to gay couples adopting children. Speaking in a long Commons debate, the former shadow pensions minister criticised the "arrogance and ignorance" of MPs who ignored expert advice that unmarried couples - gay and straight - should be allowed to adopt.
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Guardian: M'lud, meet Charlie, my grandson - Peter Preston. Stick with people, not percentages. Stick with what people do, the way they are, the way they relate and care: not with the narrow guardians of prescribed propriety. I'm sick of the nastiness of "them" and "us". I'm sick of hand-me-down morality and brace-us-up legislation.
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Guardian: Clash looms over adoption bill - The government today signalled that it aims to overturn last night's Lords vote blocking adoption by same-sex and unmarried couples, setting the scene for a fresh battle between the Commons and Lords.
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Guardian: Peers reject adoption by gays - Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent. A Conservative-inspired rebellion yesterday voted to ban same sex couples from adopting by 196 to 162, despite a plea from the gay peer Lord Waheed Alli to recognise the rights of gays to parent children, many of whom are stuck in care homes.
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Guardian: Peers could block gay adoption plan - Lucy Ward, political correspondent. Government moves to allow same-sex couples the right to adopt children may be blocked in a House of Lords vote tomorrow. Opponents argue that reform would undermine marriage and risk moving children from institutional care into unstable relationships.
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Observer: Gays hit back at charity on right to adopt - The Christian Institute, an evangelical think-tank, produced thousands of anti-gay adoption cards. They are now to be investigated by the Charities Commission for using money raised through their tax-exempt charitable status to promote 'plain, straightforward bigotry'.
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