Gay Marriage to be Illegal in the Church of England

lawl @ all the gay/bi on social networks making endless comments about this news. Some people calling it "Gay Day" - dont we already have several huge gay parades for this?

The group who especially annoy me are the bi-curios/confused girls who just wont shutup on the subject.

If there was a day to celebrate being straight, we'd all get called homophobic.
 
Moses said:
[..] If marriage is sacred, and can't shift with the times, why don't we have truly traditional marriage? Perhaps go back to the medieval conception, for the lols.
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Which medieval conception? The usual image of "medieval marriage" is partly fictional anyway and would only have applied to upper class marriages even if it was true and only in the late medieval period, i.e. the whole chivalry thing.

But if we're going with traditional, that's too late:

1) Go with the root of the word. That's Latin and well before Christianity conquered Rome, so we'd have to go with traditional ancient Roman marriage. Hmm...which one? There were four different forms.

1a) Confarratio (spelling...that looks wrong). Hugely formal archaic form used only by the patrician class (nobility during the Roman monarchical period, almost prehistoric). The only religious form...but of course it was the ancient Roman state religion. A few problems on top of the religion thing, since it requires the flamen dialis and the pontifex maximus and neither have existed since Christianity conquered Rome. Also, it can only be carried out in pre-Christian Rome (for religious reasons), so the time travel might be an issue.

1b) Coemptio. Marriage by symbolic sale of the wife. Surprise, surprise, it was never at all popular. It wasn't actually slavery, but for some inexplicable reason Roman women weren't queuing round the block for the symbolism. I can't see it going down any better today.

1c) Usus. Marriage by being married, either by saying so or by living together as a couple for a full year without spending more than one consecutive night not under the same roof. The wife moved into the husband's family and overall it wasn't a legally equal deal. No doubt most Roman spouses implemented it in a more egalitarian way than the law required, but it was still unpopular for that reason. So much so that it was a common custom for the woman to spend several days a year away from the home deliberately to avoid being married. So common a custom that the law was changed to...

1d) Usus sine manus. As above, but on a equal footing legally.

So if we go back to the root of the word marriage, a legitimate way of interpreting what traditional marriage is, we get marriage as an areligious legal status. So, no religion there (and if there was, it would be ancient Roman state religion from before Christianity even existed).

But marriage is an English word, not a Latin one. Latin root, but an English word. So we could interpret "traditional marriage" as being marriage as it was when England first became England - the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period. So Christianity is out of luck again. Wrong period of time - Christianity didn't come back until later. But Anglo-Saxon marriage wasn't religious anyway - it was made by vows between the spouses (weddian, to vow).

So, whichever way you look at it, a traditional marriage has no connection to Christianity at all. It wasn't religious and if any religious stuff was added then it wasn't Christianity.

So...Christianity changed the definition of marriage. Christianity corrupted traditional marriage! Yes, we should being back traditional marriage! Get Christianity out of marriage!

I laugh when Christians talk about traditional marriage. They don't realise it would mean taking Christianity out of marriage entirely.

EDIT: For the sake of clarity, I'll add that the patrician class didn't only exist during the monarchical period. It was the nobility during the monarchical period. It still existed afterwards, but the advantages it had dwindled to practically nothing during the republican period, so much so that it some ways it was an advantage to be in the plebian class (commoners during the monarchical period).
 
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^ this +1

I knew that marriage wasn't a Christan thing but not the ins and outs (so to speak) - thanks for the enlightenment Angilion :)
 
Name said:
If there was a day to celebrate being straight, we'd all get called homophobic.
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Every day is straight pride day, 99% of tv shows, movies, magazines, adverts, etc.. are all aimed at heterosexuals. While I'm not equating the struggles of black people to that of the gay community, you would be ok with white pride days?

boxman2000 said:
God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve

That's all I have to say on the matter.
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Where do you think gays come from, they don't just magically appear out of thin air, if god made Adam and Eve and (completely ignoring if its a choice or not) straight people can have gay children, then by extension god did create adam and steve?
 
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RDM said:
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what these changes are about. No church is going to be forced to do anything, but those that want to (other than CoE and CoW) will be able to.

Aside from that the majority of heterosexual marriages in the UK are now civil ceremonies so there is not just a religious issue.

I struggle to see how religious freedom is actually impacted here.
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If thats the case then wheres the problem for anyone involved?

Dont really see a need for a thread on this than to bring up some deep rooted prejudices from people not really commented on the true topic of the thread.

(Unless ive missed something :D)
 
Souleh said:
If thats the case then wheres the problem for anyone involved?
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Because people with deeply held religous beliefs can sometimes want to force those beliefs on to others. So it isn't enough that they do not want to marry same sex couples but that others shouldn't be allowed to either.

Souleh said:
Dont really see a need for a thread on this than to bring up some deep rooted prejudices from people not really commented on the true topic of the thread.

(Unless ive missed something :D)
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It is somewhat topical considering the vote in parliament was yesterday...
 
Angilion said:
Wanting to use a particular word to describe a relationship (and that's all this is - an argument over a word, one which I think is bloody stupid)
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To be fair it's more than one word. As well as being able to call their legal relationship a marraige they also want (and should be able) to use the terms 'husband'/'wife' as well (I believe legally they are just your 'partner' under CPs).

Also there are certain vows that can't be used in CP ceremonies currently which gay people would like to say which they would be able to under marriage.

Finally there are still some very small legal differences currently between a CP and marriage. I think the one mentioned yesterday was couples that moved abroad. With marriage your legal status as a married couple is automatically recognised in pretty much every country in the world whereas CPs are exclusive to your country, so even if you go to another country that has a similar civil union system for homosexuals your's wouldn't be officially recognised, you need to have another ceremony there if you decided to settle to obtain any rights. With gay marriage a couple married in Britain for example could move to the Nederlands or Spain (other countries that recognise gay marriages obviously) and that legal bond would remain just like if a straight couple did and be protected by that host countries marriage rights automatically without having to hold another ceremony.

In short, they seem like small issues but the debate is more than just the word marriage.
 
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Name said:
lawl @ all the gay/bi on social networks making endless comments about this news. Some people calling it "Gay Day" - dont we already have several huge gay parades for this?

The group who especially annoy me are the bi-curios/confused girls who just wont shutup on the subject.

If there was a day to celebrate being straight, we'd all get called homophobic.
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If you want to celebrate being straight then go ahead, I don't imagine anyone will try to stop you. You're certainly not fighting decades (or centuries) of intolerance or social prejudice by being straight but if it makes you feel a bit better then knock yourself out with a campaign to have a day to celebrate your sexual orientation.

Although it would be nice if you made your day inclusive for anyone - I've been to a few gay parades and they've always been entertaining and welcoming regardless of sexual orientation. Although with that said I can imagine that for many people (irrespective of their sexual orientation) they're not going to be particularly comfortable to watch - albeit the reasons why they aren't comfortable may be rather different.
 
RDM said:
Because people with deeply held religous beliefs can sometimes want to force those beliefs on to others. So it isn't enough that they do not want to marry same sex couples but that others shouldn't be allowed to either.
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I dont see that really happening here. Yes ive seen it in the past but ive equally seen gay rights etc going very OTT too.

I dont see marriage as a human right and the church isnt shouting "Down with homosexuality" but theyre saying that they wont marry homosexuals either, still not seeing a problem. They are entitled to their beliefs, as is everyone. As I said before its not persecution against homosexuality either.
 
smelly_legend said:
Now they whole gay thang is settled - I want to get married to at least 5 to 10 people at once.
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Personally I don't have a problem with that. But I somewhat doubt you know 5-10 people willing to marry you let alone at the same time.

But this 'slippery slope' argument that if we allow gay marriage then people will want to start having polygamous, incestuous or bestiality based marriages is a little silly.

You could apply that logic to any law couldn't you? Maybe we shouldn't have banned smoking in pubs because 'next they'll be banning beer in pubs too'. Or maybe we shouldn't have banned people driving whilst using a mobile or else they'll ban 'listening to the car radio next' etc etc.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
BBC link here

I thought England was a progressive country...I'm absolutely shocked and furious at this decision. I feel like we're stepping back into the Middle Ages, and, frankly, I think it's against human rights to be banned from marriage in a certain location. Reading the news before today I had been thinking that today would be the day that this farce would be turned around....apparently I was too optimistic in thinking that the church could accept people's differing choices.

Edit: Made a mistake, CofE isn't at fault here. Still shocking though, good on them for opposing it, however.
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Good on the Church. If Gays and their kind want to get married then go to the civil marriages office. Don't mix backward Atheist traditions with the Churches.
 
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