A Church Lacking A Christian Response Here

So this morning, as is usual for me I logged into Twitter via my smartphone. What was more unusual though was that every Tweet more or less seemed to be on the subject of equal marriage. Now on one level, this did not surprise me, as the Government consultation on the issue of  equal marriage closes at the end of this week, and campaigners, naturally, have been doing their utmost to keep the issue at the heart of the news and social media agendas.

What was most unusual for me though was that the tone of the tweets was almost without exception a combination of sadness and anger directed almost universally towards the Church. Now again, this is no absolute surprise since the positions of some quarters of the Church and those in favour of marriage equality have long been diametrically opposed to one another.

However, what has provoked this latest conflict in a long line of many is that today the Church of England published its’ response to the Government’s consultation on equal marriage today. Here is what the Government hopes to enable the LGBT community to do in light of their proposals.

• To allow same sex couples to marry in a register office or other civil ceremony.
• To retain civil partnerships for same sex couples and allow couples already in a civil partnership to convert it into a marriage.
• To allow people to stay married and legally change their gender.
• To maintain the legal ban on same-sex couples marrying in a religious service.

Now at first glance to me these proposals do not seem very provocative towards or very likely to cause conflict between the Church of England and the body politic at large.

But honestly if ever there was a case against being unrelentingly optimistic the Church of England is surely it, without a doubt.

It is worth pointing something out here, well two things really. Civil ceremony means just that, with no religious overtones whatsoever. These ceremonies would be conducted outside of Churches and in registry offices or other comparable venues.

However some quarters of the Church of England are not happy at all. In their response to the Government consultation, issued today it was suggested that;

“Government proposals to allow same-sex marriages by 2015 would “alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history”.

Furthermore, it was also suggested that marriage implied biological complimentarity, alluding to the possibility of procreation.

The Rt.Rev Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester who appears to be the spokesperson for the Church of England’s unhappiness with the proposals also opined:

“”I think this is the church trying to uphold our traditional teachings and understanding about marriage and trying to avoid a sudden and rapid redefinition of marriage for everybody at a time when many marriages are in difficulties and where it is very unlikely that, within just a few weeks, a universally acceptable new definition of a fundamental social institution can emerge.”

But away from hyperbole and hysteria I feel it important to point out something again. The Church’s teachings will not be altered a jot, as the civil ceremonies will not be taking place in churches, because, as can be clearly gleaned from the proposals, that ban still remains. The Church will be as free as a bird to carry on marrying the people that it selectively chooses to marry. It will just mean that couples in the LGBT community will no longer have to sit on the sidelines, longing desperately for change, as the Coalition Government will give it to them.

I suspect this is why it was so long in coming, because successive Governments, irrespective of political persuasion, knew the Church’s stance on this issue was at best myopic, and wanted to fudge the issue and avoid a showdown.

So whatever you think of David Cameron’s political beliefs, one at least has to applaud him for having the courage of his convictions on this issue.

But do you really know what I resent? Having some kind of biological superiority imposed upon me by the canonical elite. Thus, this invalidates the contribution that gay parents make to their children’s lives, giving them homes in difficult often challenging circumstances, therefore ensuring that they have the best start in life they could possibly want.

Whether you parent a child via biological or other means matters not. Biology will not make you a good parent. However, your ability to love, care and nuture will. However, I do not think who you choose to go to bed with has any bearing on these abilities.

Secondly, the point about history and tradition. My life now, at some point in the future will become my history. History is a frame of reference to the past, not unshakeable dogma.I am not advocating a wholesale reinvention of the Bible.

What I am saying is that there are some things in the Bible that were forbidden, that we now do. Have you eaten prawns recently? Or, have you worn any mixed fibres? I think you see my point.

History and tradition serve to preserve the past, because the world evolves. We no longer view minority ethnic groups as slaves. We no longer lock disabled children up in institutions, denying them humanity, and access to the world and educational prosperity and attainment.

So therefore, why should we deny LGBT couples the right to get married? Exactly! We should not. It is primitive, bigoted and utterly unjust.

In the midst of this “masterclass in scaremongering” as Ben Summerskill of Stonewall so rightly put it. I see a Church scared of change, so scared in fact that it is almost like it has stepped out of a bubble on to an alien planet.

A Church that it is abandoning its founding principles for homophobic ones.

A Church which makes the possibility of schism look ever more likely through its’ own stubborness.

A section of the Church which is lacking a Christian response. I say section because Giles Fraser and other progressives like him do not think in the same way.

When Jesus said the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law were hypocrites, He was right. But what is the difference between his pronouncement then and the way some Christians behave now? None really, is there? Food for thought.

 

Why The Fuss Over Gay Marriage?

So one issue that is dominating the headlines at the moment, is that of gay marriage.  It has many definitions and much has been said. Put simply though, it is the right of two gay people to get married and to describe it as such, alongside the legal benefits and entitlements which that brings. The current definition only cites men and women, and does not allow for or adequately represent the broad spectrum that is the LGBT community.

So it must be pretty straightforward right? Update the law and allow the Community to marry, alongside their male and female counterparts? The END. Erm no. Believe me friends, I wish with all my heart and soul and fibre of my being that were the case.

But no. We are where we are, in the midst of a great amount of hoopla, as Ben Summerskill, the Chief Executive of Stonewall put it.

I have to be honest and frank here. In my writing usually, as I guess is good practice, I try to not sit at either end of the see saw, but sit in the middle, weighing up pros and cons, playing a game of lexical argument and generally being impartial.

Today, I am waiving impartiality from this entry and being completely partial. I am firmly on the side of those who support gay marriage. This post will be completely partisan, and if people do not like that, do not read further.

This issue really gained political steam and currency, after the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost a lot of seats to Labour in the local elections. Many on the right wing, (i.e extreme) side of the party have sought to conflate the bad local    election results with what they view as a focus on peripheral issues, namely House of Lords reform and gay marriage.

It is an erroneous thing to say and a grave travesty of the truth. Do these traditionalists really expect myself and the wider electorate to believe that they lost votes due to a policy promoting greater harmony and equality of experiences for everyone? With all due respect to readers, I am not that easily fooled.

Votes were lost I feel, based on generalised apathy and disenchantment with the political class. It makes me so sad that the issue of gay marriage has been used as a straw man argument by the Tory right, exhibiting the usual signs of blinkered bunker mentality.

Furthermore, it saddens me greatly that the issue of gay marriage has reared its head in the political arena at all. It is about as far away from politics as one can get. Schools, hospitals, the economy and jobs are all bread and butter issues in the political arena, but gay marriage? No that is very much part of the private sphere.

It is a domestic and private issue, not one to be used as a political football then tossed aside when boredom sets in.

But to her credit, the Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has come out fighting on this one. She has reassured voters that there will be full marriage equality by 2015, despite certain press reports to the contrary at the weekend.

I feel two words have been missed out of the debate so far. Romance and love. I can well assure my readers that the gay population are just as capable of these as their gay counterparts.

Sharon James, a spokesperson from the Coalition for Marriage and creator of the YouTube campaign @Out4Marriage Mike Buonaiuto participated in a debate on my BBC Local Radio station this morning. Mike gave reasonable answers to questions and was fair minded but to listen to Sharon James, you would think that gay marriage was about to bring on the apocalypse.

She stated repeatedly, as she has done throughout this whole debate that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that gay people are provided for through the civil partnership system. The best scaremongering she could do was to suggest that in Canada, a three way partnership had been legalised.

The thing is, equality of experience in marriage will not prevent straight people from getting married. The heterosexual population will not find their marriages dissolved to nothing. All it will mean is that a patently unfair, and unjust inequality will at last be addressed.

It is senseless to suggest that the integrity of marriage will somehow be undermined by this. Things will remain unchanged. All that will happen is that the system will be rebalanced to make it fairer for those in the LGBTGQ population, who have for too long been denied this option. 

A quick word too about Amendment One, in North Carolina.My deepest sympathies go to the LGBTGQ community there and I stand shoulder to shoulder with them in the their struggle.

In closing, why the fuss? Those who are for gay marriage deem it as their right, something to fight for and rightly so. Those against, well I would guess the fuss relates to prejudice and bigotry and unjust homophobia and fear. The point is though, lots of things cause fear, but an oppressed minority suffer because of that fear.

The thing that galls me about the ‘against’ camp is this. They can hold those views, without consequence. But the LGBTGQ community will suffer for their fears, while they get let off the hook.

If the issue of marriage equality is a political football, so be it. We can’t change that. But what we can do is to put that football firmly on our side of the pitch. Should we? Yes. Must we be? Definitely. I am @outformarriage and I want my LGBTGQ friends to get married.It is no more simple, or more complicated than that.