religion

On Freedom Of Religion

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I have only one further comment to make on the topic of gay marriage and religious freedom for now, this time prompted by another article in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9145759/Church-powerless-to-stop-same-sex-marriage-even-if-hundreds-of-thousands-object.html

The article discusses the publication of the British government’s “national consultation document” (no, I don’t know what one is and have never heard of one either, but I’m sure that its publication kept an army of civil servants and several retired, titled former judges well-occupied and remunerated for some considerable period of time, as all lengthy British enquiries seem to do).

The gist of the article that even if hundreds of thousands of people object to the legalisation of gay marriage, it may still go ahead (and it is implied, of course that this would be a terrible thing, because apparently we like the tyranny of the majority – or enthused minority, in this case – in this country, as long as it is working in our favour).

However, one sentence in the article struck me as particularly important and much overlooked:

“The document repeatedly underlines that the change would only affect civil marriage and that there would be an outright ban on same-sex marriages [in] religious premises even if some denominations wanted them.”

Do you understand this, stalwart defenders of “traditional values” and “religious freedom”? Even in the government’s new proposed law, it would be illegal for your church, synagogue or mosque to perform a same-sex marriage even if it wanted to some day. The government is dictating what you can and cannot do within the confines of your own church.

In this case, your view and that of the government are broadly in alignment, believe it or not – neither of you want same-sex marriages to take place in religious spaces. The only argument concerns whether you should be allowed to continue to impose your definition of marriage on the general, non-religious population through the institution of civil marriage. But some day in the future your interests may diverge, and the government may choose to legislate something directly impacting what goes on in your holy place that you profoundly disagree with.

They have the power to do it now, and as this “national consultation document” shows, they are doing it now, but you say nothing because your interests are aligned. But I don’t want to hear a word of complaint if ever a government law is proposed that actually makes your church do something that it doesn’t want to do.

That would be a violation of freedom of religion. Not the legalisation of civil same-sex marriages.

Married Couple Or Just “Profound Friends”?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

I didn’t go to Mass last weekend because I knew that all of the Catholic churches in Britain were going to read to their congregations a pastoral letter from the Bishops, exhorting us to fight against the government’s plans to legalise gay marriage in the UK. I don’t have time for that nonsense, and I don’t much care if this puts me at odds with official church teaching, because in 100 years’ time the church will agree with me. People that accept gay marriage and contraception will be looked back upon as latter-day Copernicuses, and those who frown upon it will be looked upon much like the Antebellum South. That’s just how it is, huff and puff about traditional values all you like.

I’m used to seeing cringeworthingly anti-intellectual arguments against gay marriage from my church, but this latest one from the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, really takes the cake:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9147559/Gay-couples-are-just-lifelong-friends-says-Catholic-leader.html

Gay couples are, apparently, just lifelong friends who somehow got confused or duped into incorporating a romantic element into said friendship. Says the Bishop:

“I would want to say to them that I understand their desires, that I understand their experience of love is vitally important in their lives, but I would want to say to them that they are called in my view, in the Church’s view, to a very profound friendship in life … I would want them to be respected, but I would want them to have a vision in themselves that what they are called to is not marriage but a very profound and lifelong friendship.”

Good, well that’s sorted then! No need to continue this argument about marriage equality because gay and lesbian people are just good pals who got a bit confused after a few drinks.

Sigh.

The Daily Telegraph has a poll on the subject, which, as is so often the case, misses the point entirely:

It is not for Daily Telegraph readers to decide whether gay marriage in churches should be allowed. That is a matter that does, and should always, remain with the various religions and denominations. No one is suggesting that Vincent Nichols be frog-marched to the altar of Westminster Cathedral and made to bestow the Catholic sacrament of marriage on a gay couple. As long as the official church position is that homosexual unions are a sin, clergymen should and must not be required to violate their churches teaching in such a way.

However, neither does any one religion, church or denomination have the right to impose their particular standards for marriage – or dietary customs or anything else – on the population as a whole. The Catholic church can object to gay marriage and ensure that no such unions are sanctioned within the church, but beyond that it has no authority, spiritual, moral or otherwise, to lecture other people. And any claims to the moral high ground are roundly rebuffed by their tolerance of civil heterosexual unions, and their deafening silence on the topic of extra-marital affairs and the astonishingly high divorce rate.

I’ll leave it to Nick Herbert, the UK government Home Office minister to have the last word in this case:

“I don’t seek to dictate to the Archbishop what happens inside his Church, what standards he sets and what he seeks to do. It would be quite wrong for me or the state to do so. But equally I wonder why he should seek to dictate the institution of civil marriage outside of his Church which is not a matter for the Church.”

Amen.