Thursday 14 June 2012

Taking their ball away

The Church of England, with its response to proposals to legalise same-sex marriage, has shown once again that it is a very long way from modernising. They've behaved rather like a kid threatening to remove his football from the field if the game is not played in exactly the way he wants, by claiming that if they were 'forced' to conduct gay weddings, it would be "impossible for the Church of England to continue its role conducting marriages on behalf of the State".

Make us do it and we'll split from the State so we're no longer the 'official' wedding provider, this is saying. Well, not only is this a ludicrous overstatement of the 'dangers' facing the Church, of which more in a sec, but if I had my way their bluff would be called. Since they're already legally obliged to offer weddings to any UK resident regardless of their religious affiliation, but routinely refuse to conduct re-marriages, for example, how exactly would their role be any different from now, other than in being more inclusive? They don't worry about legal challenges from divorcees who want to marry again, but they do worry about legal challenges from gay people?

They talk about the erosion of the old values of marriage when they should be happy that there are people out there who still want to commit to such an institution at a time when divorce is on the rise and the number of weddings not far above its historic low. Obviously these are just not the right kind of people for them.

For me, they should be allowed to take their ball and told to sod off. Since three quarters of weddings in the UK do not take place in a church anyway, and I believe strongly that the Church should play no role in government in any form, what's to be lost by completely 'divorcing' Church and State in this case? There are plenty of modernist people within the Church who could conduct a ceremony with religious content for those who want it, and plenty of beautiful locations to hold those ceremonies which are not owned by the Church – it doesn't have to be within the four walls of a CofE building. Whether they'd be prepared to leave the CofE to protect the rights of gay people to marry is another matter, of course, but I'm quite sure society, and the concept of marriage, would survive without the Church.

If the law is changed, that only leaves one thing to be sorted out for genuine equality in this area in Britain, which is the right for heterosexual people to commit to a civil partnership rather than a marriage. Surely, in search of equality, this has to come eventually as well.


1 comment: