Reply to topic  [ 36 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3  Next
Catholic cardinal criticises gay marriages plan 
Author Message
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 10022
Reply with quote
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17249099

Quote:
The government's plans for gay marriage have been criticised by the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Britain.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said the plans were a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".

He said the idea of redefining marriage, which David Cameron has said he supports, would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world".

He said it was wrong to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or father.
'Universally understood'

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O'Brien said: "Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

"Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father."

He added: "Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'

"Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right?"

Cardinal O'Brien has become the latest of several senior clergy to denounce what he calls the "madness" of the government's backing for marriage to include homosexual couples.

He accused ministers of attempting to "redefine reality" and "dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage".

In January the Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, also insisted governments did not have the moral authority to redefine marriage.
'Wish to commit'

Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said the government's consultation on gay marriage was not aimed at forcing religious groups to endorse same-sex marriages.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "We're not seeking to change religious marriage and we're not seeking to impose it on religious groups.

"What we are saying is that where a couple love each other and they wish to commit to each other for their life then they should be able to have a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation."

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, a former equalities minister, said she thought it was right to have same-sex marriages.

She added: "I don't want anybody to feel that this is a licence for whipping up prejudice.

"What you're talking about is individual people and their personal relationships, their love for each other and their wanting to be in a partnership or getting married. I think we should support that."

Margot James, the first openly lesbian Conservative MP, accused the cardinal of "scaremongering".

She said: "I think it is a completely unacceptable way for a prelate to talk.

"I think that the government is not trying to force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages at all. It is a purely civil matter."

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights organisation Stonewall, said: "When you read the insulting tone to which Cardinal O'Brien descends on marriage you sense an argument already lost.

"If Roman Catholics don't approve of same-sex marriage, they should make sure they don't get married to someone of the same sex."
Consultation launch

But back-bench Conservative MP Peter Bone said he did not know where the government's mandate to pursue the issue came from.

"It wasn't in our manifesto. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto. It wasn't in the Liberal manifesto.

"Nobody in my constituency before this row has ever come up to me and said this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with.

"It came completely out of the blue and it should certainly not be put before the next general election."

Mr Bone said he believed marriage could not be anything other than the union of a man and a woman.

"It's rather like saying a pear is an apple - it just can't be. It's just really the definition," he said.

"I'm in favour of civil partnerships and equality. But, you can not in my view redefine marriage on a whim."

Mr Cameron publicly supported gay marriage at last year's Conservative Party conference, and the Home Office said last week the government believed a loving and committed couple should "have the option of a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation".

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone will launch a consultation later this month on how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples.

She has said she wants to challenge the view that the government does not have the right to change marriage traditions.

"It is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better," she said.

The Scottish government has held a consultation process north of the border and received more than 50,000 responses.

Many church leaders believe gay marriage would represent a further significant step in marginalising traditional religious values in society.

Civil partnerships were introduced in 2005 to give same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples, but the law does not allow such unions to be referred to as marriages.

A new law allowing civil partnership ceremonies to be conducted in places of worship in England and Wales came into effect last year.

The Church of England has said it will not allow its churches to be used for civil partnership ceremonies unless the full general synod gives its consent.

_________________
Image
He fights for the users.


Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:47 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm
Posts: 8767
Location: behind the sofa
Reply with quote
TL;DR but the quote "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" sounds like something someone might have said about the Catholic church :twisted:

_________________
jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly."

When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net


Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:53 pm
Profile WWW
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 10022
Reply with quote
Felt it a bit long but from what I gather, it's the term "marriage" that some feel ought to remain religious and the Govt should dream up another word.

_________________
Image
He fights for the users.


Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:57 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 3:29 pm
Posts: 7173
Reply with quote
To not allow gay couples to marry is to suggest that they are not the equal of heterosexual couples; this is intolerable in a modern liberal democracy.

Let the religious bigots do what they want with their own ceremonies and their own churches, but civil marriage is none of their business. Christians need to learn that they have no right to foist their outdated and outmoded beliefs on the rest of the population.

I also like that the Tories are supposedly in favour of equal marriage these days, when I wrote to my Tory MP about this very issue a while back he revealed what a bigoted tw@t he is in his reply to my letter.

_________________
timark_uk wrote:
That's your problem. You need Linux. That'll fix all your problems.
Mark


Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:25 pm
Profile
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:56 pm
Posts: 12030
Reply with quote
Homosexuality has been observed in over 250 species.
Homophobia appears to have been observed in 1.

_________________
www.alexsmall.co.uk

Charlie Brooker wrote:
Windows works for me. But I'd never recommend it to anybody else, ever.


Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:36 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm
Posts: 8767
Location: behind the sofa
Reply with quote
Perhaps "The Church" should come up with a new word to describe "Married in a way we approve of", because married is a legal status and our law is not governed by the church - much less by a Catholic cardinal's personal opinion.

ProfessorF wrote:
Homosexuality has been observed in over 250 species.
Homophobia appears to have been observed in 1.


This reminds me of that guy that married a dolphin. Dolphins are people too - there was also an article on that recently!

_________________
jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly."

When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net


Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:46 pm
Profile WWW
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:21 am
Posts: 12700
Location: The Right Side of the Pennines (metaphorically & geographically)
Reply with quote
See I'm generally pro gay rights and I generally don't like the church. However I can sort of see their point. The word "marriage" is defined as a union between a man and a woman and is used by all major religions as that.
As long as gay couples have all the same legal rights (financial, adoption etc) through civil partnerships as married couples, I see nothing wrong with keeping the word marriage for male/female couples only. Maybe we need to invent a new word to describe "married gay couples", one that religious people can't take offense to?

_________________
pcernie wrote:
'I'm going to snort this off your arse - for the benefit of government statistics, of course.'


Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:50 pm
Profile WWW
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 3:29 pm
Posts: 7173
Reply with quote
l3v1ck wrote:
See I'm generally pro gay rights and I generally don't like the church. However I can sort of see their point. The word "marriage" is defined as a union between a man and a woman and is used by all major religions as that.
As long as gay couples have all the same legal rights (financial, adoption etc) through civil partnerships as married couples, I see nothing wrong with keeping the word marriage for male/female couples only. Maybe we need to invent a new word to describe "married gay couples", one that religious people can't take offense to?

That doesn't work, because it implies that a same-sex union is somehow second-class to a heterosexual one.

I don't see why the secular majority need to bow down to how marriage is defined in a fictional, 2,000 year-old, poorly-translated & Roman Catholic-censored book.

Straight couples can get married without any involvement from the Church, so gay couples should be able to too.

_________________
timark_uk wrote:
That's your problem. You need Linux. That'll fix all your problems.
Mark


Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:53 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm
Posts: 8767
Location: behind the sofa
Reply with quote
l3v1ck wrote:
Maybe we need to invent a new word to describe "married gay couples", one that religious people can't take offense to?

I stand by my previous comment:

I wrote:
Perhaps "The Church" should come up with a new word to describe "Married in a way we approve of", because married is a legal status and our law is not governed by the church - much less by a Catholic cardinal's personal opinion.


However, it would demonstrate that "we" (the unprejudiced majority) are better than "them" (the Catholic bigots) if we decided to eliminate the word "marriage" from all law and replace it with "civil partnership" or whatever. Heterosexual church-going couples could still get the religious bit done if they so desired, and I would not look down on them for it.

_________________
jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly."

When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net


Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:04 pm
Profile WWW
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 10022
Reply with quote
Perhaps marriage can be reserved for male/female unions and must be religious.

Quite often, there are people who have never been to church/mosque/temple in their life, yet when it comes it getting married, they suddenly feel it must be at a religious venue. This is where things have fallen apart IMO. Perhaps, if a couple are religious, regularly go to a church/mosque/temple, they'll be known by the priest and hence can be "married". If you're not religious, not known at the church/temple/mosque, and aren't in a male-female relationship, it can't be called marriage.

As a doctor, I already have to ask whether people have a "partner" or are in a relationship - I can't ask if they're "married" as it's not politically correct. This is down to "marriage" encompassing the idea of a religion-approved male-female relationship. Given that a lot of couples have children without wanting to get married, you can't assume that the mother of your child patient is married, nor whether the children all have the same father.

I think we just need a modern word that people can use and doesn't determine whether they're in a male-female relationship but are still committed. It has to sound like married (ie relatively easy to say, with widespread use). Maybe something like parried? :lol:

_________________
Image
He fights for the users.


Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:08 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm
Posts: 8767
Location: behind the sofa
Reply with quote
cloaked_wolf wrote:
Maybe something like parried? :lol:

En Garde!

It's true "civil partnership" doesn't really sound very cosy.

_________________
jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly."

When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net


Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:11 pm
Profile WWW
Legend

Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2009 12:30 pm
Posts: 45931
Location: Belfast
Reply with quote
A gay rights campaigner earlier said they wouldn't be taking any lessons on sexuality or child welfare from people who had abused thousands of kids...

_________________
Plain English advice on everything money, purchase and service related:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/


Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:53 pm
Profile
I haven't seen my friends in so long
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 3:29 pm
Posts: 7173
Reply with quote
pcernie wrote:
A gay rights campaigner earlier said they wouldn't be taking any lessons on sexuality or child welfare from people who had abused thousands of kids...

:lol:

_________________
timark_uk wrote:
That's your problem. You need Linux. That'll fix all your problems.
Mark


Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:30 pm
Profile
What's a life?
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:56 pm
Posts: 12030
Reply with quote
I liked Stonewall's advice to people opposed to gay marriage: Don't marry someone of the same gender.

_________________
www.alexsmall.co.uk

Charlie Brooker wrote:
Windows works for me. But I'd never recommend it to anybody else, ever.


Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:34 pm
Profile
Spends far too much time on here
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:38 am
Posts: 2967
Location: Dorchester, Dorset
Reply with quote
I personally think of civil partnerships as a marriage anyway and call them such. It's just semantics really. If you consider yourself married, just say you are. I k ow someone who isn't married in any sense, but they've taken their partner's name and call him their husband.

_________________
I've finally invented something that works!

A Mac User.


Last edited by tombolt on Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Mar 04, 2012 11:43 pm
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 36 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3  Next

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Designed by ST Software.