What religious beliefs are they rewriting? This is about the civil contract of marriage, as a society we can define that to be whatever we like.
Gay Marriage to be Illegal in the Church of England
- Thread starter dirtychinchilla
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What religious beliefs are they rewriting? This is about the civil contract of marriage, as a society we can define that to be whatever we like.
Afaik in the Bible, marriage is considered to be a joining of a man and a woman to produce life (eg another human). Should we therefore force churches to marry same sex couples against this belief?
maybe its time that religion got with the times, perhaps the bible needs a second edition rewrite
Or a man and his many wives, and slaves, depends on which part of the Bible you read?
And does this mean Churches wont marry infertile couples? How horrific an idea.
Chruches will be dragged kicking and screaming against their will into the modern era of science whether they like it or not, and just like they have been condemned when it came to their positions on slavery, sexism, racism and opposition to interacial marriage, so will they be judged on their stance on homosexuality.
Churches aren't going to be forced by this legislation to marry same sex couples though. Although in my opinion the CofE as the established church should be forced to or be disestablished.
Soldato
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Well you shouldn't have trouble naming a few then should you?
But this wasn't about gay adoption. It's about marriage.
If children are their concern and gay adoption is allowed as it is, surely it's better that those children are raised by a married couple?
Then you'll probably find this interesting. One of the theories contains a naughty word in it's name but I hope on this occasion it can slide on educational grounds....
Yeah I knew you were putting forward their point of view, and my response was aimed at that notion rather than you. Apologies for the confusion.
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Exactly, which is why this legislation is pretty empty IMO.
Soldato
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Depends how you view the Church. I would think it is viewed as private entity and not a commercial organisation and therefore can refuse to marry whomever they want.
I'm not sure if it would be illegal in the UK, but in the US there have been examples of churches (in the South of course) that have refused to marry mixed race couples for example.
I think the church would probably end up being burnt down in shame if they tried to pull that off over here in this day and age, we have come quite far in the past 30 years in dealing with religious bigotry and today was just another step in the right direction.
The CofE is forced to not marry same sex couples - as per the title of this thread, a restriction that they certainly didn't ask for. As an Anglican I think this is a real shame - you can't get married in Church unless one of the couple is a member of that Church's congregation anyway, and in many Churches LBGT people are made welcome so the law is preventing such members of the Church from being married in their Church.
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Sure they would never refuse because of the bad PR but the question is whether it is legal or not. If ultimately Churches has the legal right to refuse any marriage then I don't see why this bill should make a special case for gay marriage and remove that right.
I'm happy the bill went through and support it on the basis of equality, so if churches have the right to refuse any marriage then that is equality (even if they apply that right unequally), forcing them to marry homosexuals whilst allowing them to refuse other couples on other grounds wouldn't be.
That is the one part of the bill I do disagree with though. I don't understand why they didn't get the choice like all other Churches/Religious institutions.
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It is to protect the CofE from actually making a decision on the matter. The churches leaders know full well whatever (flat yay or nay) they decide to try and enforce is going to cause a rift and weaken an already falling church. This way they can still give the homophobic no, but blame the government if things get too heated with it.
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I would comment on this, but TBH reading the first page of best rated comments in the comments section on a news article online says it all for me!
"STOP going on about something most people do not want ,get on with saving the country ,thats what your paid for Cameron."
"Why is this man so obsessed with pushing this through when the majority don't want it and never will. He was never given a mandate from the people for it."
"This was not in the Tory party manifesto, leave alone else you will exclude Christians from supporting you at the next election, and UKIP will send you Tory toff's to oblivion!!"
"The country is in turmoil and this is his priority, the man shoul be ashamed of himself and is highly unlikely to get a second term in office."
"Bye bye Tories! It's UKIP for me!"
"Religion does not have a monopoly on marriage" And politicians don't have the right to completely change the definition of marriage, either!"
"Men can not marry men."
"Surely this should be a public vote, not for 650 cronies."
"eople losing their homes jobs no prospects in the future money being given away like there is no tomorrow to the EU and overseas aid Troops being killed is some far away country and what are the MPs worried about not even their expenses . But gay marriage it really beggers believe ."
"No it was not,!!! like most other things, that were, not in their manifesto and the more important things that were in their manifesto, they have completely abandoned.!!! it is like they have just followed on from labour and they say democracy is alive a kicking, not in this Country that is for sure.!!!"
"STOP going on about something most people do not want ,get on with saving the country ,thats what your paid for Cameron."
"Why is this man so obsessed with pushing this through when the majority don't want it and never will. He was never given a mandate from the people for it."
"This was not in the Tory party manifesto, leave alone else you will exclude Christians from supporting you at the next election, and UKIP will send you Tory toff's to oblivion!!"
"The country is in turmoil and this is his priority, the man shoul be ashamed of himself and is highly unlikely to get a second term in office."
"Bye bye Tories! It's UKIP for me!"
"Religion does not have a monopoly on marriage" And politicians don't have the right to completely change the definition of marriage, either!"
"Men can not marry men."
"Surely this should be a public vote, not for 650 cronies."
"
eople losing their homes jobs no prospects in the future money being given away like there is no tomorrow to the EU and overseas aid Troops being killed is some far away country and what are the MPs worried about not even their expenses . But gay marriage it really beggers believe .""No it was not,!!! like most other things, that were, not in their manifesto and the more important things that were in their manifesto, they have completely abandoned.!!! it is like they have just followed on from labour and they say democracy is alive a kicking, not in this Country that is for sure.!!!"
It was also intended as a concession to the Conservative back-benchers.
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As others have said, why do they care?
The absolute last place I would ever get married is the CoE as it goes against everything I stand for in life. Most Gay people should surely prefer to simply get married elsewhere?
Countless nicer places to get married anyway.
Leave the churches to their age old ways and let them be - eventually they will just get left behind and forgotten about and no longer be a part of our world. (fingers crossed).
CoE reminds me of that annoying kid in school who used to be popular but nobody really cares anymore so they start to **** people off for the attention.
The absolute last place I would ever get married is the CoE as it goes against everything I stand for in life. Most Gay people should surely prefer to simply get married elsewhere?
Countless nicer places to get married anyway.
Leave the churches to their age old ways and let them be - eventually they will just get left behind and forgotten about and no longer be a part of our world. (fingers crossed).
CoE reminds me of that annoying kid in school who used to be popular but nobody really cares anymore so they start to **** people off for the attention.
Soldato
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Well the idea that 'most people don't want it' seems to be untrue if you look at opinion polls...
3 out 5 people of religion support gay marriage (I'd suspect it's even higher if you look at just Christians) and no Christian can speak for the whole group by making claims that imply they all want the same thing and will react in the same way.
Besides, Christian numbers are dropping year on year, Cameron is being far smarter by appealing the secularists anyway, just look at Mitt Romney, appealed to the old dying demographic and got battered.
"The country is in turmoil and this is his priority, the man shoul be ashamed of himself and is highly unlikely to get a second term in office."
"
The idea that parliament can only concentrate on one issue at a time is just stupid. Why can't they do this AND deal with the economy?
The coallition have been in power for nearly three years now, those comments imply they've just got into power and it's the first thing they're doing.
If the want to waste their vote that's up to them.
So Parliament was wrong to change the law 100 years ago then when the only way people could get married was in the Anglican Church? I suppose that was wrong and we should go back to dismissing Muslim marriages, Jewish marriages, Catholic marriages?
And on this 'definition' thing, it's a logical fallacy. It basically arguing using the historical fact that gay people have never been able to marry means it's defined as between a 'man and a woman' it. By that logic every time we change any law that has historically stayed the same we are changing the 'definition' of it. Gay sex used to be illegal, so when they changed that was it wrong to 'redefine the definition of' sex?
Well hopefully they will be able to. But why can't they?
Why? Do we get to vote on all of the governments policies? Besides, it would be a massive waste of money only to get the same result (as shown by the poll above)
It may not have been in their manifesto and maybe you could argue it should have been but Cameron was a vocal supporter of gay marriage before he was elected PM.
In short, all of the comments you posted are bollards.
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It was only a brief period of time (1753 - 1836) in which marriages had to be approved and registered by the CoE (and only in England and Wales, which was part of the reason for the whole Gretna Green thing). So the point is even stronger than you thought - anyone who claims to want to return to the old laws regarding marriage should be advocating that religion stays out of marriage. Except for that brief period, marriage in this country has been areligious for at least the rest of recorded history. People could add religion to it if they wanted to, but marriage wasn't religious.
Soldato
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Thanks for the info.
But wasn't it Henry VIII that also 're-defined' marriage when he created the CoE in direct response to the then ban on re-marriage after divorce imposed by the Catholic Church so he could get married to his new wives?
...or was I not listening properly in history class?