From the BBC:
Earlier this month, Lord Carey said legalising gay marriage would be "an act of cultural and theological vandalism".
However, Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay, lesbian and bisexual charity Stonewall, said: "Our strong advice to anyone who disagrees with same-sex marriage is not to get married to someone of the same sex."
What have we wrought in the UK?
5 hours ago
14 comments:
Surely Stonewall has to go on the list of fake charities, they're a pressure group with a preferential tax status.
CD, according to their 2010 accounts, only about one-tenth of their income is from the UK government, so they're far from the worst. Even if they are a fakecharity, he's quite right on this point and he was rebutting something from the Church of England, the biggest fakecharity of them all :-)
Trouble is a civil partnership isn't a 'marriage'. Marriage has a special meaning. The definintion is something like 'the joining together a man and a woman ...for the procreation of children...". Civil partnerships can't do that, so if you want to make it possible for homosexual people to 'marry' you have to change the definition of marriage.
(PS we have a lotb of gay clients, and I've made this point to one or two of them).
L, so are we arguing about use of the word "marriage" itself, a word which pre-dates Christianity? Or about whether the BGTL's (would) like to form permanent, official, legally recognised, monogamous relationships?
It appears a desire to broaden the definition of the term "Marriage". So long as BGTLs don't want to solemnise the entry into their permanent, official, legally recognised, monogamous relationships in church, it's nothing to do with the Archbish. OTOH, I am rather afraid that some of them do want just that. In which case he's within his rights to say no.
B, but there's my dilemma.
If a totally independent, non-state funded, non-subsidised, non-favoured religion (and they mostly get tax breaks - but let's imagine there is such a thing) has a big sign outside its places of worship saying "No gays!" then that is absolutely fine, that is freedom of association, right of expression etc.
But the Church of England is the national church, it is part of the government, and the government is part of it.
So ultimately, the pol's can tell the Church of England what to do, unless CoE want to withdraw their bishops from HoL, abandon all the subsidies and tax breaks and so on, accept that people no longer have to swear oaths on bibles in Court, waive the right to 'anoint' the monarch, have funding for their faith schools withdrawn etc etc, which i sorely doubt.
Well, I get tax-breaks, does the state have a right to tell me who I'm going to admit to my quarters? Funding status and theology is two different issues. Not religious myself, but I'd think that reducing theology to be something subject to a democratic process is about as blasphemic as it gets.
Universities are another example; gets massive state-funding, but is still allowed their own set of standards to award academic titles.
so are we arguing about use of the word "marriage" itself, a word which pre-dates Christianity?
Christianity is a splinter group of Judaism, so it's not a very good benchmark for 'word pre-dating' arguments.
But to answer your question, ultimately yes. What I found bizarre about the whole civil partnership debate was that everyone (on both sides) made a big deal that they're not 'marriage' without ever really explaining the difference.
Or about whether the BGTL's (would) like to form permanent, official, legally recognised, monogamous relationships?
Everyone seems to have a different opinion on what the official/legally recognised part actually means. The discussion cannot meaningfully progress until there's some kind of consensus on what it is we are actually discussing.
But the Church of England is the national church, it is part of the government, and the government is part of it.
That's not a circle that can be squared. A state religion will always either be at odds with the government, or become the government (either subsuming or being subsumed). It's why an established religion usually makes little sense.
Kj, F, religion has always been something which ruling 'elites' instigate to consolidate their own position and to create a sense of cohesion/nationalist fervour among their subjects. The same applies to the CoE, it was to bind us against the Catholic world (for whatever reasons).
And Nazism or Communism were religions in exactly the same way and for the same reasons, it really sickens me when the Goody Two Shoeses say "A but Stalin was an atheist".
Was he heck as like, true, he wasn't overtly Christian (although he trained as a priest, so he knew a trick or three), but he was was the figure head of his own cult of personality-sum-national religion called "Soviet Communism", that applies to most Communist rulers - see e.g. North Korea.
MW et al. Be careful. Many people do have 'faith' and are not at all conned by the 'ruling elite'. However I agree that 'religion' was and is used by totally unscrupulous elites to motivate and contain their populations - Iran, middle ages England, Catholic Europe etc etc spring to mind. It is also intriguing how men of genuine faith in those times were persecuted by their ruling elites.
Tricky area this. But personally I am anti 'marriage' for gays, unless we have had a real searching debate about what 'marriage' actually means. And we haven't.
religion has always been something which ruling 'elites' instigate to consolidate their own position and to create a sense of cohesion/nationalist fervour among their subjects. The same applies to the CoE, it was to bind us against the Catholic world (for whatever reasons).
The state will usually co-opt, rather than instigate religion. The CoE is the exception that proves the rule. If the Reformation movement had not already begun, I seriously doubt ol' Henry would ever have tried it.
but he was was the figure head of his own cult of personality-sum-national religion called "Soviet Communism"
Ironically, that doesn't tell you much about the beliefs of the figurehead himself, but the point is that the evils that come from trying to force people into religion are the same as trying to force people into any other ideology (whether classically religious or not), and EVERYONE has ideology.
"unless we have had a real searching debate about what 'marriage' actually means"
"Marriage" is just a word and words, despite organisations like the Acadamie Francaise, mean what the users want them to mean. History is stuffed with people railing ineffectually against the introduction of new meanings for old words. "Gay" is case in point: once it meant "happy", now it means "male homosexual". So if the BGTLs want to refer to their permanent, official, legally recognised, monogamous relationships as "marriages", there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it, whether they be governments or churchmen.
"Marriage" is just a word and words, despite organisations like the Acadamie Francaise, mean what the users want them to mean....So if the BGTLs want to refer to their permanent, official, legally recognised, monogamous relationships as "marriages", there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it, whether they be governments or churchmen.
Yes, but they still *have* meanings. They still refer to *something*. The question still remains, what exactly is it that people are campaigning for that they expect government to be able to provide/prevent, whatever you end up calling it?
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