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.
Showing posts with label Church of England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Church of England. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Playing catch-up
It's emerged this week that over 100 members of the CofE's clergy have written to the Church's General Synod calling for the clergy to be allowed to decide whether to offer civil partnership ceremonies on Church premises. This is welcome news from one point of view, but it also highlights fundamental inequalities in the way different Church thinking discriminates against people in this country. This is an explicit, legal inequality as well - the 2010 Equality Act(!) removed the previous prohibition on civil partnerships happening in places of worship, but made it clear that no church or religious group should be forced to hold civil partnerships if they don't want to.
While I would usually defend any move that prevents people from being forced to do things they don't want to, that cannot be the case where it's an open invitation to discrimination. We've already seen court cases where guest houses were prosecuted for refusing to take in gay couples as guests, for example - other laws explicitly forbid discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexuality, so why not this one?
In another example of what, to an atheist, are only slightly divergent threads of the same theology thinking and acting completely differently, this has led to the bizarre position whereby, for example, Quakers and some Liberal Jewish people can celebrate a civil partnership in their place of worship, but CofE members cannot. (There's also still the fundamental problem that civil partnerships are denied to straight couples, and that 'true' marriage (ie not a civil ceremony, a marriage in the real sense) is denied to gay couples, but that's another entry all of its own.)
The letter has not been made public but its existence shows that some members of the clergy are rather more in touch with modernity and the make-up of their flock than the General Synod, but that has its own problems - it could lead to further schism within the church, even more tangled and subtly divergent strands of religious thinking. But I hope the General Synod realises it's out of touch with the society it serves. Numbers of church attendees are falling dramatically, as I've said before, and they're only really holding up at all, certainly in larger cities, because of the increasing numbers of the flock being drawn from immigrant communities, rather than British people, who are (happily for me) becoming more and more secular. If the churches are serious about reversing the decline in attendances, they need to move with the times and treat everybody the same, so I hope the Synod pay heed to the contents of the letter.
I realise that allowing the clergy freedom of choice in this matter opens the door for differences in treatment of poeple across the country, depending on one's local clergyman's point of view, but that's got to be better than a blanket ban. At least people would have some chance of finding a church which would allow them their ceremony in a place of religious significance to them. They've moved to allow female vicars, they can move on this one, if they're serious about engaging with society as it is now, not as it was when they were all young clergymen themselves.
While I would usually defend any move that prevents people from being forced to do things they don't want to, that cannot be the case where it's an open invitation to discrimination. We've already seen court cases where guest houses were prosecuted for refusing to take in gay couples as guests, for example - other laws explicitly forbid discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexuality, so why not this one?
In another example of what, to an atheist, are only slightly divergent threads of the same theology thinking and acting completely differently, this has led to the bizarre position whereby, for example, Quakers and some Liberal Jewish people can celebrate a civil partnership in their place of worship, but CofE members cannot. (There's also still the fundamental problem that civil partnerships are denied to straight couples, and that 'true' marriage (ie not a civil ceremony, a marriage in the real sense) is denied to gay couples, but that's another entry all of its own.)
The letter has not been made public but its existence shows that some members of the clergy are rather more in touch with modernity and the make-up of their flock than the General Synod, but that has its own problems - it could lead to further schism within the church, even more tangled and subtly divergent strands of religious thinking. But I hope the General Synod realises it's out of touch with the society it serves. Numbers of church attendees are falling dramatically, as I've said before, and they're only really holding up at all, certainly in larger cities, because of the increasing numbers of the flock being drawn from immigrant communities, rather than British people, who are (happily for me) becoming more and more secular. If the churches are serious about reversing the decline in attendances, they need to move with the times and treat everybody the same, so I hope the Synod pay heed to the contents of the letter.
I realise that allowing the clergy freedom of choice in this matter opens the door for differences in treatment of poeple across the country, depending on one's local clergyman's point of view, but that's got to be better than a blanket ban. At least people would have some chance of finding a church which would allow them their ceremony in a place of religious significance to them. They've moved to allow female vicars, they can move on this one, if they're serious about engaging with society as it is now, not as it was when they were all young clergymen themselves.
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