From Pink News:
The Conservative MP [Jacob Rees-Mogg] for North-East Somerset has said that he will choose to be "whipped" by the Catholic Church rather than by his party.
The mind boggles.
In today's Metro he was reported as saying:
"I believe it is the right of the churches to define marriage, not the right of the state, so I shall vote in accordance with the Roman Catholic whip"
Righty-ho. But that doesn't answer the question "Who decides what is a 'church' and what isn't?" The answer must be either a) the members of the church or b) the 'state'.
As an aside, after 1945 there were a lot of so-called "uncle marriages" in Austria and Catholic areas of Germany. This was because war widows were set to lose their war widows' pensions if they remarried, so what a lot of couples did was to have the big wedding in the local Catholic church (to make the relationship socially acceptable) but never register this at the official register office. So in the eyes of the 'state' these war widows were not actually married and could continue to draw their war widows' pensions.
The expression "uncle marriage" arose because the widows' children were encouraged to refer to their step-father (?) as their "uncle", just so that there would be no nasty mix-ups with the authorities. But the point of the example is that there is quite clearly a difference between "being married" from the point of view of the Church and "being married" from the point of view of the 'state'. A couple can be one or the other or both as it sees fit. And presumably there are bizarre situations where one parner is considered to be married and the other isn't. And what about polygamists who come to the UK - do the second and third wives actually count as "wives"?
As per usual for religious fanatics, Rees-Mogg wants the best of both worlds (like Islamists complaining about the UK government abusing their human rights).
OK, Boris, Here's An Idea For You...
3 hours ago
