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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Gay weddings - what happens next?
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
The UK Government has 'graciously' allowed the churches the 'opt-in' to performing same sex wedding ceremonies.
They have preempted the biggest row by forbidding Anglican Churches from conducting such ceremonies.
This, they say, is all to do with conscience and allowing churches to practice their beliefs.
How nice of Mr Cameron to let us believe what we do in accordance with our reading of Scripture and conscience.
But something occurs to me that I believe may have been overlooked here. I have never heard anyone yet speak on this - what happens after the ceremony that many Christians and entire churches believe is a sham because 'marriage cannot be between a man and a man'?
Do we who believe this nevertheless have to accept a gay couple as 'married'? After all, we didn't want to conduct the ceremony because we don't believe it is valid.
Mr Cameron has allowed us to have our conscience in this - he is allowing us to think it, allowing us to opt out of validating such relationships in our ceremonies.
Is he also going to allow us the freedom of conscience to refuse to accept people as 'married'? Because if we accept them then it rather makes the 'opt-out' rather pointless.
Has Mr Cameron forgotten that the wedding ceremony is not the actual marriage? If we accept the married relationship then we cannot claim the opt-out as far as the ceremony is concerned.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Mudfrog's topic title: Gay weddings - what happens next?
They go home and have steamy sex?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Is he also going to allow us the freedom of conscience to refuse to accept people as 'married'? Because if we accept them then it rather makes the 'opt-out' rather pointless.
What difference does it make? Or are you simply reserving the right to express disapproval of certain lifestyle choices people make?
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
If the CofE acts true to type it will refuse to do the ceremonies but will, eventually, get around to offering a blessing (at least some clergy will).
In other words, it will be exactly the same situation there used to be for those of us who'd had a marriage dissolved.
So the message will be "we don't approve and we won't marry you but we'll bless it anyway, so long as you're a regular churchgoer" - and gradually that, too, will be relaxed.
Frankly, if marriage is seen as being a lifelong commitment to a faithful, exclusive, supportive, loving relationship then I don't see what people are getting so exercised about.
And to answer the argument about children: how many couples of more mature age do you know who've been even asked if they're still capable of having children before being married in church - even more, ever heard of a couple with the woman past childbearing being refused a church wedding?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
What happens next, Mudfrog, is that this thread goes to Dead Horses, where it should have been started in the first play. It's covered by the "any aspect" clause in the Dead Horse topics guidelines.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
posted by Le Roc
They go home and have steamy sex?
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Mudfrog's topic title: Gay weddings - what happens next?
They go home and have steamy sex?
I thought getting married was a sure fire way of making sure that steamy sex never happened again? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
The OP is asking essentially the same question as Spawn asks in his 'Assimilate me' thread.
Mudfrog: married couples are married according to the law of the land, and in all things that bear on marriage according to the law.
You are entitled to snub them and be rude to them, just as you're entitled to snub and be rude to people who have divorced and remarried, men who have wed the sister of their deceased wife, and anyone by the name of Cohen who has married anyone born out of wedlock. Don't be surprised though if quite nice people--fellow Christians even--let you know you're behaving like a shit when you do. And please, please don't announce that you are being persecuted.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Under the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms, the rite of marriage is not the perogative of the church, but the prerogative of the state. It is the state that defines how old people can be to get married. It is the state that determines what has to be done to get married (ie blood tests, marriage license, who is authorized to perform the marriage). Consequently, if the state decides to allow for equal marriage regardless of sexual orientation.
It does present a question for some on how to minister to these couples should they choose to join a church. Anglican churches may want to check out: http://www.integrityusa.org/ Integrity USA
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
And to answer the argument about children: how many couples of more mature age do you know who've been even asked if they're still capable of having children before being married in church - even more, ever heard of a couple with the woman past childbearing being refused a church wedding?
I never mentioned that argument.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
The OP is asking essentially the same question as Spawn asks in his 'Assimilate me' thread.
Mudfrog: married couples are married according to the law of the land, and in all things that bear on marriage according to the law.
You are entitled to snub them and be rude to them, just as you're entitled to snub and be rude to people who have divorced and remarried, men who have wed the sister of their deceased wife, and anyone by the name of Cohen who has married anyone born out of wedlock. Don't be surprised though if quite nice people--fellow Christians even--let you know you're behaving like a shit when you do. And please, please don't announce that you are being persecuted.
Yeah, thanks for that attack. How well do you know me that you can accuse me in those terms? This thread has been moved to dead horses, not hell!
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Under the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms, the rite of marriage is not the perogative of the church, but the prerogative of the state. It is the state that defines how old people can be to get married. It is the state that determines what has to be done to get married (ie blood tests, marriage license, who is authorized to perform the marriage). Consequently, if the state decides to allow for equal marriage regardless of sexual orientation.
It does present a question for some on how to minister to these couples should they choose to join a church. Anglican churches may want to check out: http://www.integrityusa.org/ Integrity USA
Thank you Gramps. There is a pastoral as well as a legal issue here. The state might say that a couple are married in the eyes of the law but that does indeed present a problem of conscience (that the government says it does, in fact, recognise) to those who sincerely do not agree from a Tradition or Scripture point of view.
People like some shipmates here who will simply yell abuse at us for holding such views which, until 3 years ago were perfectly acceptable, ISTM, will do very little to change our minds.
For what it's worth - though I'll probably get shit poured all over me - I agree with Peter Tatchell when he says gay and straight couples should equally be able to have civil partnerships.
I have no problems whatever with people having a CP - but I do not believe that marriage is something that can be redefined.
[ 25. May 2013, 21:15: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Oh poor Mudfrog. He's been attacked for having a spiteful opinion!
Maybe he could check out what happened in Canada or another dozen or so countries that aren't totally genital-fixated. SSMs have been happening for 8 years here, and it has only been an issue for the kind of church that wants everyone to know how put-upon they are for having to allow for the mere existence of people they don't like.
Which is not a good advertisement for "the Love of God for all"
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Mudfrog, as an example as what might happen after propel start to have gay civil marriages, in Washington, DC, the local Catholic Archdiocese threatened to stop operating homeless shelters there rather than have to allow married same sex homeless couples to sleep together in their shelters. I am not sure if they went through on that threat. DC did not have the equivalent if civil partnerships before same sex marriage, but if they had, I think the Catholic Church would have had to allow same sex homeless couples in a civil partnership/civil union to sleep together in their shelters because their shelters receive government funds and couples in a civil union/civil partnership receive all the same legal rights and privileges as married couples.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
A propos to this thread is this article from CNN, discussing the idea tat (certain) Christians may become a "hated minority" for espousing hateful ideas about groups of people.
These "certain" Christians are amazed that expressing strongly-negative views of certain persons might be seen as hateful, despite all the evidence of bullying, job loss, social ostracism and consequent suicide that those opinions may have caused.
In addition, they haven't been able to separate the concepts of "civil" and "church" marriage, as shown in the OP. The State has interests in defining relationships that are not part of what the church may want. Get over it.
quote:
Public jousts over the Bible's stance on homosexuality rarely change people’s minds. What changes is when people get to know gay and lesbian people as friends and hear their story, says Beal, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Bible.”
“If you open up to that other person genuinely, you basically come to a point where you have to sacrifice them to your ideology or crack open your ideology to make a hospitable place for them,” Beal says.
and quote:
Carter, the evangelical blogger, says he foresees a day when any church that preaches against homosexuality will be marginalized. Just as many churches now accept divorce, they will accept sexual practices once considered sinful.
“It’s getting to the point,” he says, “where churches are not going to say that any sexual activity is wrong.”
IMNSHO, the only sexual practices that should be addressed negatively by the church are those that involve harm to one or both partners in the activity. A long-term loving relationship between two people does not involve harm to either.
Why certain church people insist otherwise?
And why do certain church people whine about losing their status in society if their members exhibit anti-social characteristics (that go against the preaching of the church)?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Thing of it is, mudfrog, marriage has constantly been redefined over the centuries. What was considered permissible in the 1500's would not be permissible now. The Bible itself describes at least eight different types of marriage, but it really never defines marriage. It gives a principle, that it is not good for one to be alone. While the ideal may be for a man and a woman in companionship, sometimes it does not work out that way. If a man finds lifelong companionship with another man, or a woman with a woman, so be it. I think it is the church's task to encourage that companionship even strengthen it were possible. Same sex couples have the same aspirations as a any couple, they also experience struggles as a couple. Why not work to encourage the aspirations and help them work through the struggles. Companionship is the overriding principle.
Just today I came across an open letter to the church written by a teenager in South Dakota. It is a frank prophetic voice the church needs to hear. Here is the link: http://dannikanash.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/an-open-letter-to-the-church-from-my-generation/
The deal of it is Dannika was to be a camp counselor at a church camp in Iowa this summer. After she wrote that letter, she got a call from the camp director who told her she was fired. I think the actions of that camp director just proves Dannika's point. Why is it the church is always wanting to shoot the prophets God is raising up.
I have found out the camp is Camp Okoboji in Iowa. I have sent a letter to the director protesting the camp's decision. I would hope other people will also object to what happened. You can email the camp director directly rodq@okoboji.org
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Mudfrog
It's not Mr Cameron's job to decide what your church's theological response to gay married couples should be, is it?
Maybe your problem is the legal side of things, e.g. whether churches will be obliged to hire non-clergy staff who are in gay marriages? I have no idea about that. I presume that the Salvation Army's extensive charitable programme must require the employment of people who aren't always Salvationists, some of whom may not be Christians at all. If this is so, then surely you already have lots of experience of dealing with issues like this. How do you deal with straight applicants who are cohabiting, or who have had multiple divorces, or who are promiscuous? I suppose these lifestyles and choices are easier for applicants to hide than being in a gay marriage?
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
The OP is asking essentially the same question as Spawn asks in his 'Assimilate me' thread.
Mudfrog: married couples are married according to the law of the land, and in all things that bear on marriage according to the law.
You are entitled to snub them and be rude to them, just as you're entitled to snub and be rude to people who have divorced and remarried, men who have wed the sister of their deceased wife, and anyone by the name of Cohen who has married anyone born out of wedlock. Don't be surprised though if quite nice people--fellow Christians even--let you know you're behaving like a shit when you do. And please, please don't announce that you are being persecuted.
Yeah, thanks for that attack. How well do you know me that you can accuse me in those terms? This thread has been moved to dead horses, not hell!
It's not an attack, it's a statement of fact. I'm old enough to recall some of the rhetoric of some of the things said about non-white people, and find myself in wonder.
It might be worth answering the question "when did you choose to be heterosexual?" and posing such questions and ideas in light of the answer.
In a more moderate tone, if you give it time, you'll relax about it, and so will the reactionary denominations. We've had marital equality for a while in Canada, and discrimination is a human rights issue. It's been much easier for all of us to have everyone considered equal. We think Jesus likes it too, because he told us.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
The crucial 'redefinition' was accepting women as equals whose worth didn't depend on their ability to make and rear babies. Once you admit that marriage is about the capacity for lifelong love between equals, not born in the same family, then gender is irrelevant.
People who want less of that sort of marvellous love in the world can't accept that they've lost in their efforts to privilege heterosexual hierarchy (with women limited to the subordinate roles that men allow, and gay people shut out because admitting equal non - procreation centred marriage doesn't fit with the beloved ancient scriptural texts of the excluders ).
The big problem with both Evangelical bibliolatry and Catholic fetishism of tradition is that both are misogynistic - despite hilarious special pleading to claim that women's subordinate roles are actually some sort of privilege. The idea that a superhuman God can only come up with something so poor where women and gay people are concerned makes a mockery of their claims that their God is worth worshipping and undercuts their claims to possess authoritative revelation. But anyway it won't stop some people hanging on to their idea that God expects women and gays to know their (inferior) place in marriage.
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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
I think my answer on the other thread fits here as well.
quote:
I put "problem" in quotes because ISTM the question in the OP is really how to sneak "your so-called 'marriage' " into conversation without being thought a jerk. Best of luck with that.
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do we who believe this nevertheless have to accept a gay couple as 'married'?
Mudfrog, to address this reasonable question, I think we have to know what actions you have in mind when you use the word "accept".
I don't accept the stop and frisk laws of New York¹, but this mental reservation means very little outside of my own skull until I, myself, am selected for a stop and frisk encounter by, to me, 4th-Amendment²-violating police. Only then do I have to decide what acceptance means.
Can you help us understand your question by giving an example or two of what a demonstration of non-acceptance might entail?
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I can't see what the problem is. Surely, you will have the right to say to gay married people, or about them, 'I don't consider you/them to be married', or the equivalent. So what's the problem then?
I have the right to say, 'I don't want black people living in my street', I think, don't I? Or, 'I wish women had not had the vote', and so on.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
For what it's worth - though I'll probably get shit poured all over me - I agree with Peter Tatchell when he says gay and straight couples should equally be able to have civil partnerships.
What, in your opinion, is the difference between a civil partnership and a marriage performed by a justice of the peace, without benefit of clergy?
What would you see as the essential differences between a marriage and a civil partnership, with respect to the law?
quote:
I have no problems whatever with people having a CP - but I do not believe that marriage is something that can be redefined.
The problem with that, of course, is that there are many different definitions of marriage, and those definitions have changed many times.
Even if you restrict yourself to Christian marriages, there's a lot of change over time. For example, in the earliest years of the Church, marriages were not performed in the Church. Men could have more than one wife, and they could have concubines. When the Church began to perform marriages, slaves were not permitted to marry, because they could not give their consent. Remarriage, after death or divorce, was impossible -- for a long time there was no such thing as a second marriage. The Western church began allowing second marriages to the widowed, which was an absolutely radical change to the definition of marriage. The Eastern church began allowing second marriage to the widowed or divorced, which was no more or less radical than the Western church's change.
What is the definition that you consider permanent and unalterable?
And should this definition apply to everyone, even if they are not Christians? Or does it only apply to Christians? If it only applies to Christians, should the state enforce it? Why or why not?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
There you go, Josephine. Logic again.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
There's the states definition of marriage, and Mudfrog's definition of marriage. People are going to chose the former as the default meaning of the word and your attempts to define it as something restricted will be viewed as pathetic, futile and nasty. You can console yourself that you're a Christian martyr, just like those who receive disapproval for calling a remarried divorcee an adulterer.
[ 26. May 2013, 08:42: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
The crucial 'redefinition' was accepting women as equals whose worth didn't depend on their ability to make and rear babies. Once you admit that marriage is about the capacity for lifelong love between equals, not born in the same family, then gender is irrelevant.
People who want less of that sort of marvellous love in the world can't accept that they've lost in their efforts to privilege heterosexual hierarchy (with women limited to the subordinate roles that men allow, and gay people shut out because admitting equal non - procreation centred marriage doesn't fit with the beloved ancient scriptural texts of the excluders ).
The big problem with both Evangelical bibliolatry and Catholic fetishism of tradition is that both are misogynistic - despite hilarious special pleading to claim that women's subordinate roles are actually some sort of privilege. The idea that a superhuman God can only come up with something so poor where women and gay people are concerned makes a mockery of their claims that their God is worth worshipping and undercuts their claims to possess authoritative revelation. But anyway it won't stop some people hanging on to their idea that God expects women and gays to know their (inferior) place in marriage.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But Mudfrog will surely be permitted to describe gay marriages as sham, if he wants to. I don't think this will be illegal, will it?
Of course, it depends on how he does it! But at present, it is OK for someone to argue that divorced and remarried people are not really married. I doubt if a policeman would come knocking at the door, if you said that.
In fact, it is important that Mudfrog should be free to say 'that is a sham marriage', isn't it?
[ 26. May 2013, 09:16: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Once you admit that marriage is about the capacity for lifelong love between equals, not born in the same family, then gender is irrelevant.
However, in the real world as well as in theology, marriage seems to be about more than lifelong romantic love. After all, why would the state ever have got involved in marriage if love was the only issue?
quote:
The big problem with both Evangelical bibliolatry and Catholic fetishism of tradition is that both are misogynistic - despite hilarious special pleading to claim that women's subordinate roles are actually some sort of privilege.
Paradoxically, though, both traditions are dominated numerically by women. They clearly feel they gain some advantage (or 'privilege') by being there.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But people are permitted to be misogynists, aren't they? They are not permitted to discriminate against women in some areas, such as employment, but they are permitted to say, I don't like women, and so on. Similarly, Christians are permitted to say that cohabitees are an abomination; I assume that Mudfrog will be permitted to say that gay marriages are invalid. I can't see the problem really.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Svitlana, 'romantic' is your word, not Louise's, and it slants the argument.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I suppose people can be allowed to say that in their opinion, or according to the teachings they follow, a same sex marriage is sham or invalid. I don't think thay can be allowed to go round saying that in fact they are, because that will be legally inaccurate and deliberately hurtful.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Svitlana, 'romantic' is your word, not Louise's, and it slants the argument.
I thought about adding 'romantic' before I did, but decided it was appropriate.
Louise was careful to state that she was referring to individuals 'not born in the same family'. This means she's talking about one, or several, of the kinds of love that can exist between non-related people. Usually in Western culture marriage is deemed to be appropriate for those who experience romantic love, and I assumed that this is the kind of love Louise was thinking of. Other kinds of love, though they may be present, aren't usually thought to be of prime importance in the decision to marry.
However, if Louise was implying that marriage would be appropriate for a couple of friends who have a deep but firmly platonic love for each other, that's a different matter. There are some people who argue that marriage could be re-invented for friends who don't see each other as partners in a romantic relationship. If that's the case, though, the one wonders why members of the same family shouldn't marry. After all, there would be no incest involved, and blood is thicker than water...
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But people are permitted to be misogynists, aren't they? They are not permitted to discriminate against women in some areas, such as employment, but they are permitted to say, I don't like women, and so on. Similarly, Christians are permitted to say that cohabitees are an abomination; I assume that Mudfrog will be permitted to say that gay marriages are invalid. I can't see the problem really.
If by "permitted," you mean that it's not illegal, of course people are permitted to be misogynists. At least on this side of the pond, there are no laws restricting what you think, feel, or believe.
If by "permitted," you mean that you can think it and say it without adverse social consequences, then it's likely that it won't be permitted. If you tell your next-door neighbors that they are not really married because they are gay, or because they married after divorcing a previous spouse, or because one of them is Christian and the other not, or because one of them is white and one of them is not, it is likely that your neighbors may begin to shun you.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I suppose people can be allowed to say that in their opinion, or according to the teachings they follow, a same sex marriage is sham or invalid. I don't think thay can be allowed to go round saying that in fact they are, because that will be legally inaccurate and deliberately hurtful.
In this country, you are allowed to say things that are legally inaccurate and deliberately hurtful. Anti-abortion groups are allowed to say that abortion is murder. Libertarians are allowed to say that if you accept government assistance, you are stealing.
I don't know whether that kind of rhetoric is illegal elsewhere. I doubt that it is. Here, it's a perfectly normal part of political speech. Unpleasant, maybe, but normal.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Yes, that's an interesting point in law, which I don't know what the answer is to. I suspect it depends in the UK on how you say it. Thus, if you make a theological argument, that say, cohabitation is an abomination, I doubt if PC Plod will be tapping at your door. If you say that 'fags are perverts' he may do, depending on where you say it.
[ 26. May 2013, 13:59: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
I thought getting married was a sure fire way of making sure that steamy sex never happened again?
Oh, I'm so sorry.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The state might say that a couple are married in the eyes of the law but that does indeed present a problem of conscience (that the government says it does, in fact, recognise) to those who sincerely do not agree from a Tradition or Scripture point of view.
You may have to (finally?) come to grips with the fact that your traditon and Scripture do not dictate the law of the land. You may have to acknowledge that there is a difference between legal marriage and the church's holy matrimony. The Catholics have already done this because to them a remarried person whose first marriage was not annulled is not "really" married as far as the church is concerned, yet they clearly ARE married as far as the state is concerned. Time for the SA to grow up?
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
I am assuming that Louise, as a historian, knows the history of the idea of 'romantic love' and its distinction from what the authors of the BCP refer to when they speak of 'the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.'
Mind you, according to the Church, 'romantic love' has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage. Would you say that the love that Christ has for His Bride, the Church is 'romantic love'? What about the love described in the Song of Songs?
To describe either as 'romantic love' would be the definition of kitsch.
It seems to me that the part of Louise's post you have fixed upon is the part that points out that the third purpose of marriage according to the prayerbook ('the mutual society, help, and comfort...') has become the most important in our culture; she suggests some historical reason for this.
Personally, I've been struck by the sense that the otherness of the Beloved doesn't need to be a gendered otherness for the marriage to represent the marriage of Christ and His Holy Church--that is, the lover and beloved don't need to be of opposite sexes for the symbol to be valid.
ETA: And if you think that marriages can't and don't happen between 'Platonic friends,' Svitlana, I can only say that the world is bigger and wilder than you think.
[ 26. May 2013, 14:09: Message edited by: Amos ]
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Louise
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# 30
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Posted
[massive crosspost - this was following on from Amos's earlier post - Amos deals very well with the romantic love derail]
I'd just come along to make that point. If there's anything about egalitarian marriage as it's historically developed which excludes those of the same sex, I don't know what it is. What marriage has to do with the state and whether it should have anything to do with the state is an entirely different question.
In response to Svitlana's other point, I was speaking specifically in the context of the ultra conservative approach to marriage - with its gendered hierarchy and traditional gender roles. In the same way that you get poor people voting for parties that exist to benefit the rich, you get women who buy into a system that ultimately works against them as a whole - either because they don't see it that way or because 'I'm alright Jack' - it so far hasn't bitten them in the bum as it bites others. Others, for example, might find that if they leave an abusive husband, they're seen as the guilty party because they weren't submissive enough, or they'll be judged because their marriage didn't adhere to traditional gender roles etc.
It's this end of the spectrum I'm talking about - thanks to the general advances of feminism, it's the case that in a lot of the church world the old misogyny inculcated by church tradition and the usual proof texts is rendered 'mostly harmless', unless you happen to get in the path of the zealots who're very keen on keeping and reviving this sort of stuff. This matters for gay people because teaching about traditional gender roles and gendered hierarchy is used to claim that marriage for them is 'redefining marriage' in some horrid blasphemous way rather than simply extending to others the kind of marriage we (the non-conservatives) have already had and enjoyed for some time.
Hence the conservative types in a tizzy about the horror of even possibly mentally or socially accepting equal marriage for gay folk. They don't accept egalitarian marriage for straight folk and they're very cross that the rest of us do, and that we don't reverence the sexist bits about marriage in the Bible or Church Tradition anymore, and even worse, many people dare call the nastiest bits in the Bible/Church Tradition 'bigoted' - as they'd talk about any other text or organisation advocating discrimination against harmless ordinary people.
To steal the catchphrase of Corporal Jones, the Unco' Guid don't like it up 'em. Instead of being able to bask in social approval for their goodness and holiness, they now run the risk that people might look at them with horror like they just admitted to voting BNP or drowning kittens. It's a threat to their respectability which used to be one of the great pay-offs of visible piety.
To be fair though, there is a vast amount of selfless good done by people who accept the uglier bits of the Bible along with the good bits, and there's some justice perhaps to them feeling this will be dismissed out of hand or devalued as people shudder and dodge their collection box or respond to their testimony of piety with thoughts along the lines of 'Oh no, he'll be another one of those God-bothering, gay haters'.
I think the changing respectability of conservative piety might have a fair bit to do with things like the OP.
[ 26. May 2013, 14:28: Message edited by: Louise ]
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
Amos
I don't think anything you've said in your last post identifies why marriage can't include people who are already related to each other. You do mention Song of Songs, which indicates that sexual love can play a part (I'm not sure why you think 'romance' is an inappropriate term, though), but it's not clear why platonic marriages shouldn't occur between brother and sister in other scenarios.
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Svitlana, you're missing my point, I personally think of marriage as partly constituting something like a family relationship when there wasn't one before. [I may be right or wrong on that - it's a personal view] But this is also irrelevant as to whether there is anything in modern egalitarian marriage which requires that people must be of differing genders/sexes. If you think there is, then please tell us what it is.
[ 26. May 2013, 14:41: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
And to be clearer from my cross-posting
quote:
It seems to me that the part of Louise's post you have fixed upon is the part that points out that the third purpose of marriage according to the prayerbook ('the mutual society, help, and comfort...') has become the most important in our culture; she suggests some historical reason for this.
Exactly. One of the interesting things about Reformed Church approaches to marriage is that this starts to emerge as important at an early stage. The Westminster Directory for worship is already moving away from procreation-centred approaches in the mid 17th century. I like the BCP statement of that element very much.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
I was speaking specifically in the context of the ultra conservative approach to marriage - with its gendered hierarchy and traditional gender roles. In the same way that you get poor people voting for parties that exist to benefit the rich, you get women who buy into a system that ultimately works against them as a whole - either because they don't see it that way or because 'I'm alright Jack' - it so far hasn't bitten them in the bum as it bites others. Others, for example, might find that if they leave an abusive husband, they're seen as the guilty party because they weren't submissive enough, or they'll be judged because their marriage didn't adhere to traditional gender roles etc.
So women in the RCC, or in Pentecostal churches, for example, are basically victims, sleeping with the enemy because they haven't been enlightened and liberated yet? Some might see that as a bit patronising! Western women have been walking away from churches and marriages for a long time now, so it's rather dramatic to talk about people living in fear of being 'judged'.
quote:
The conservative types [are] in a tizzy about the horror of even possibly mentally or socially accepting equal marriage for gay folk. They don't accept egalitarian marriage for straight folk and they're very cross that the rest of us do, and that we don't reverence the sexist bits about marriage in the Bible or Church Tradition anymore, and even worse, many people dare call the nastiest bits in the Bible/Church Tradition 'bigoted' - as they'd talk about any other text or organisation advocating discrimination against harmless ordinary people.
To steal the catchphrase of Corporal Jones, the Unco' Guid don't like it up 'em. Instead of being able to bask in social approval for their goodness and holiness, they now run the risk that people might look at them with horror like they just admitted to voting BNP or drowning kittens. It's a threat to their respectability which used to be one of the great pay-offs of visible piety.
I agree that conservative Christians in the West should give up on the 'social approval' lark. They haven't represented the moral majority, or been the benchmark for 'respectability' for a long time now. Some of them have chosen to withdraw from the role of guardians of a diffusive Christian culture, and I think that's for the best. They should be in the world and not of it.
Mudfrog's comments arise out of a perception that we live in a 'Christian nation', and that what the PM says is somehow meant to line up with what happens in churches. I think it's time to let this notion die, because the discordance between the ideal and the reality is just to great to do anything but create frustration and impotence in the churches. My view is that these churches should be focusing now on strengthening the spirituality and commitment of their core membership, rather than arguing about what non-Christians and non-members should do about gay weddings!
(Your view is probably that they should either get with the secular programme or wither away and die. But each to his own!)
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Louise
Very good long post above. It must be a shock to conservatives that it's a Tory govt that has introduced the bill on gay marriage. Some of the reaction has been utterly bizarre - e.g. Tebbitt with his lesbian queen being artificially inseminated. Good grief, the man has been watching too much sci-fi.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Svitlana, you're missing my point, I personally think of marriage as partly constituting something like a family relationship when there wasn't one before. [I may be right or wrong on that - it's a personal view] But this is also irrelevant as to whether there is anything in modern egalitarian marriage which requires that people must be of differing genders/sexes. If you think there is, then please tell us what it is.
Oh, I think that the government can and should re-configure marriage however it sees best, according to the democratic wishes of the electorate, whether that's 'modern' and 'egalitarian' or something else. But I also think that the churches should be free to use entirely different criteria. The problem we have today, as I'm sure you'll agree, is that the two things got muddled up at some point in the past and haven't entirely been disentangled yet.
As for marriage being about creating new families, that seems to be a somewhat random concept if we believe that people can 'become family' perfectly well without the benefit of marriage, as is quite common in the culture today. If marriage isn't necessary for the creation of families, then perhaps the creation of families shouldn't necessarily be seen as the starting point for marriage. But perhaps that's a tangent.
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
A bit puzzled by the OP starting this discussion, as to my knowledge, marriage isn't a sacrament to the Salvation Army. So, what does it matter? Further, Mudfrog, how would you treat a couple who were married at the local Justice of the Peace or courthouse, rather than at a church?
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It must be a shock to conservatives that it's a Tory govt that has introduced the bill on gay marriage.
Do you think so? Conservative Christians in the UK haven't been exclusively wedded to the Tory Party. Maybe the Anglican ones have, but not the others. Indeed, those who vote Labour or Lib Dem, knowing full well that those parties have socially liberal tendencies, are probably relieved that it's the Conservatives who've made the move on this issue.
All Christians who vote for the major British parties surely know and must accept that the 'traditional' Christian influence is now on the fringes of all those parties. It's probably easier for conservative Christians to tolerate this reality if they can see that liberalising social tendencies are spread equally across all the parties, rather than being exclusive to just one of them - especially if that one party might be the party that they'd otherwise like to vote for. Psychologically, it's probably easier to vote for something you don't like if you feel that the alternatives are just as bad!
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Justice doesn't need to be secular, the shame of many churches is that they have left justice to the secular world, so now important forms of justice like equality for gay people and women are thought of as exclusively 'secular', when they shouldn't be.
Choosing to go along with a system that defines you as subject and subordinate doesn't make you a victim - many people did very well out of divine right monarchies without being the divine right monarch. But if you do choose to knowingly go along with a system which defines you as a second class citizen with inferior rights to more privileged classes and castes, the time can come when you pay dearly for whatever you were originally getting out of it.
As for being easily able to walk away from the fall-out of sexist or anti-gay ill treatment or being able easily to face social disapproval and judging in tight church communities- that depends on how much of it you, yourself have internalised. It's often far easier said than done.
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Justice doesn't need to be secular, the shame of many churches is that they have left justice to the secular world, so now important forms of justice like equality for gay people and women are thought of as exclusively 'secular', when they shouldn't be.
Choosing to go along with a system that defines you as subject and subordinate doesn't make you a victim - many people did very well out of divine right monarchies without being the divine right monarch. But if you do choose to knowingly go along with a system which defines you as a second class citizen with inferior rights to more privileged classes and castes, the time can come when you pay dearly for whatever you were originally getting out of it.
As for being easily able to walk away from the fall-out of sexist or anti-gay ill treatment or being able easily to face social disapproval and judging in tight church communities- that depends on how much of it you, yourself have internalised. It's often far easier said than done.
Firstly, I think the perceived connection between church and state, even in countries where they're supposedly separated, has been unhelpful to the church's role in working for justice. It's quite possible to be in favour of gay marriage as a democratic legal possibility while not accepting it theologically within your own church fellowship. But where individuals don't distinguish significantly between their personal theology and the state it's harder for them to compartmentalise in this way.
Yes, a conservative theological position may cause pain among gay Christians in their family church in a 'tight-knit' community - but that's the downside of living in such a community. There are plenty of yearnings, lifestyles or world views that would also be problematic in such a place. If you want utter freedom to be yourself, to live without judgmentalism, then you leave the village or the small town and go to the city, where noone cares how you live, or what you believe. You can still love your family, but you don't have to be under their critical gaze! This is the story of civilisation and of of Western literature! The local community and the local church aren't the be-all and end-all of communities or of churches, and neither should their expectations necessarily be normative for the whole of society, and nor should every individual feel entitled to fit in at every church, even if it's the church they grew up in.
Moreover, women, poor people, gay people, black people, etc. all have to make judgments about what they'll lose and what they'll gain by being part of particular religious institutions. Strengths in one area tend to indicate weaknesses in others. Those churches that commit themselves primarily to justice often fail to meet people's spiritual yearnings in other ways; 'conservative' churches may win out because they offer a whole-body or emotional experience that appeals to the yearnings of a particular group of suffering people. Sociological factors, such as a 'strict' church's ability to convert and reform wayward husbands, may be of higher priority to a poor, struggling mother than whether or not there are women priests or a radical feminist theology of liberation in place.
Some ideological battles seem like academic, middle class concerns when set against the immediate realities of many ordinary people's lives. This may seem like an improper and paradoxical thing to say, and it's not always the case, of course, but it's a problem that definitely seems to afflict churches as they get more liberal. I do hope it can be solved somehow, because I'd like to see all churches flourish, liberal or not.
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*Leon*
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# 3377
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Posted
What I want to know is, what is the difference (in Mudfrog's church) in the way they currently treat married straight couples, cohabiting straight couples and cohabiting gay couples. If we knew that, we could probably extrapolate a consistent way of treating married gay couples.
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Anglican_Brat
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# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Personally, I've been struck by the sense that the otherness of the Beloved doesn't need to be a gendered otherness for the marriage to represent the marriage of Christ and His Holy Church--that is, the lover and beloved don't need to be of opposite sexes for the symbol to be valid.
There are Christians who insist that the marriage of Christ and the Church is a gendered one. These are those who insist that the Church is female because she is called "Mother."
Usually, these people have a very definitive idea of what "female" means, and it is not pretty:
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/gospel-coalition-douglas-wilson-sex
Sexism masquerading as Christian theology.
[ 26. May 2013, 18:03: Message edited by: Anglican_Brat ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
What I want to know is, what is the difference (in Mudfrog's church) in the way they currently treat married straight couples, cohabiting straight couples and cohabiting gay couples. If we knew that, we could probably extrapolate a consistent way of treating married gay couples.
I wonder if the SA, rather than really being non-sacramental, just mentally shifts the sacrament of marriage to the state. Thus if the state starts marrying gays, it is abusing the sacrament.
Otherwise ISTM if marriage is not a sacrament, then it's a legal arrangement overseen by the state, and what should the church care about how that arrangement is legally defined?
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