Gay Marriage- Did Cameron think this through?

pragmatic

Oh dear,

My posts central theme was, all people are equal, you posted a reply which was not in agreement, therefore conclusion = ...

As with the use of the word gay, you also took a hypersensitive attachment on human.  I'm not sure how I could express that human rights should be universal, without using that word   I could have said people, but that would have been construed in the same way.

To some extent I think your finding it difficult to manage your overall liberal views with the needs and views of various churches.  I already provided some light evidence to demonstrates that no church has historical ownership over the word or concept of marriage.  
As it is a state institution and legal entity no church has ownership over it in today's society either, a religious marriage is different from a state one, that is an acceptable distinction, but marriage itself between consenting adults regardless of their gender if deemed by the state to be legal, then that is what it is.

Please rescind your civil comment, as this discussion has strangely been nothing but, considering the topic.

Ultimately you have to either accept all people are equal and replace gay with black or Irish in any such argument, then see how ridiculous many views on peoples rights based the genitals they were born with, are.

Pecker

No, using a different word does not inherently cause inequality.

Steve W

Pecker

I think there are some odd views in liberalism and democracy being exposed here.

A truly democratic society protects its minorities, it doesn't start bashing people round the head the moment their view become represented by only 49.99% of the population.

We should always be striving for full equality and human rights. We should also always be driving for maximum harmony.

You'll never get everyone on board. There'll always be some religious nuts who think gays should be thrown in prison. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to build a consensus.

There is another reason for not allowing a government to arbitrarily redefine the meaning of words. All of our laws, protections and rights are enshrined in language. We mustn't set a precedent under which future administrations feel enabled to redefine the meaning of words like 'trial', 'torture' or 'free'.

We should legalise gay marriage in all places of worship, and invite the gay community to come up with the terminology.  If the CofE doesn't want to allow it in Anglican churches, that's their look out.

Just one more thing - this sort of change, which I think we all accept is controversial in our community, really should be given legitimacy by being in a party's manifesto before they implement it.

Steve W

Bl4ckGryph0n

Why make such a big deal about it, everybody knows what a marriage is, lets call it a marriage, internationally recognised, easy peasey and saves us all a lot of money for what should be a none issue

phil t

Then the church may well stop marrying non-religious people regardless of their sexual orientation.

karkus30

That's their right to do so, but the service carried out in the church can no longer be called marriage because they will have given up that right.

I'm on the side of not making laws restricting people's freedom of expression, but once laws are made, then you can't have opposing laws, its madness.

karkus30

If you make laws stopping racism etc which deprives everyone of the right to express their bigotry freely, then you cannot make exceptions for the church. You cannot make a law protecting minority bigotry in that situation no matter how 'right' the Christian church thinks it is, its not a special case. Otherwise we should reverse all the other laws ( which I think we should do anyway ). I have sympathy with the church, but sympathy doesn't cut it when the state is making laws to reduce everyone to being 'human beings' with zero differences.

pragmatic

Tangents within tangents Pecker, your augment is desperately starting to look like a fan graph.

Saying that one group of what we have already agreed are wholley equal people must under the eyes of the law use a word which is different and many would feel lessor, to satisfy a group that are/may not directly involved in the union seems a perverse abuse of power by that group.

A "religious marriage", whatever you want to call it, a word that elevates marriage for those that choose and their community allows them to be married before their good would please most people.
We need to accept the new norm that gay people and strait people are equal, therefore the legal term now applies equally to both.

If a church is offering a service to strait only people regardless to if they are bona fide members of that church, but refuse to marry gay people is a difficult one.  I would suggest that forcing on this world a marriage before god that does not accept it in the next, appears to defeat the point.

I think the discretion should be up to the individual ministers and their interpretation of their scriptures and not forced by law at the church leadership level.  If this causes internal issues in a church, then that is their problem to fix not one of the legislative.

You do raise an interesting issue, in the innate rights of all people of freedom of and from religion.  Can a gay person choose to be of a certain religion if the church refuses him membership?  Does this make his beliefs illegitimate, no matter how strongly they are held?  More of a theological question than a legal one.

phil t

So in the future, a Christian homosexual couple married in a church will not be able to say that they are legally married!

How does that differ from now?

karkus30

Because now, a different sex couple can get married in a church. If the church wants to give up marrying anyone then so be it. All marriages will be outside of the church.