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Monday 4 February 2013

Clowning around with marriage


David Cameron: "I'm a massive supporter of marriage and
 I don't want gay people to be excluded from a great institution.”


Many grassroots Tories are bewildered by what they see as David Cameron's betrayal over the government's plans to push through a redefinition of marriage but Tory warring against Tory is not a new phenomenon. In the Thatcher years the war was against the 'wets' and the question asked was "Is he one of us? Now it is, "Is he one of them?" There are suggestions that gay MPs secretly risk being outed for publicly opposing same-sex weddings and further suggestions that Tory waverers are being press-ganged to back Cameron on the gay marriage vote or their careers will be damaged. Today there is a warning that teachers and the Church of England could be sued if they don't accept the change.

It is a mystery why the government is so intent on this change when nobody has been given the opportunity to vote on such a fundamental issue. There are enough examples of the absurdity of this agenda when a man refers to another man as his wife and a woman refers to another woman as her husband. At least that is a matter of choice but the whole process turns to farce when children are involved and a child's 'mother' or 'father' who, for biological reasons, evidently cannot be the wife or the husband in the relationship since the biological mother will be a surrogate and the father a donor, unless of course the father, or mother, in a same-sex relationship is the biological father, etc, etc. The proposed solution of substituting 'parent' for mother and for father in same-sex relationships is far from convincing if one imagines a child crying 'Parent' during the night or trying to get his or her head around the situation and asking 'parent' ('mummy' or 'daddy') for an explanation.

The explanations given for the redefinition of marriage are based on false notions of love and equality. Some groups of people who love each other are rightly barred from marriage  for the well-being of society but as with all change, one step leads to another. Marriage as it stands has clear benefits for society. Couples in civil partnerships already have equality with the same rights as married couples. At the grassroots people of all persuasions are content with the status quo and simply do not understand why anyone would want to clown around with what has been regarded for centuries as a sacred institution. Clowns frequently make fools of themselves often falling flat on their face. Let's hope this is no exception.

Postscript
Three ministers holding the three great offices of state, have written a letter to The Telegraph saying that “attitudes to gay people have changed”. This has absolutely nothing to do with attitudes to gay people. It is the simple belief that marriage is the life-long union of one man and one woman. To suggest otherwise is pure deception. They claim that 'marriage has evolved over time and believe that opening it up to same-sex couples will strengthen, not weaken, the institution'. In fact marriage as an institution is declining with married couples now making up less than half the population, a position the Government were expected to address but instead of honouring their manifesto commitment on tax supporting marriage, they propose to give tax breaks to gay married couples! It is ministers' attitudes to heterosexual people that have changed.

5 comments:

  1. Joseph Golightly5 February 2013 at 09:09

    This is just another example of how politicians are not to be trusted. We have had fiddling of expenses, misleading the electorate on policy issues, lying in Court (and I guess ultimate imprisonment) and I could go on. it's just like the Anglican Church no better and no worse. The experience in Canada as to what has happened after same sex marriage (sic) was introduced should be a wake up call. Churches, teachers etc being taken to court because of their beliefs and faith. What a sorry state of affairs! And what happens when out Moslem brothers and sisters start to really thaink about the implications.

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    1. Quite so Joseph. This from Cranmer:
      Civil servants suggested that signatories to the Coalition for Marriage petition, which indicate a clear answer to question 1 of the consultation,[5] would be counted as consultation submissions. Later the Government backtracked on this assurance and said that whilst they had regard to the petition, they would not count signatories as submissions. On this basis they could claim that 53% of submissions were in favour of redefining marriage. If the Government had honoured their original undertaking, then a staggering 83% of submissions would have been against their proposals. Many people who would have made a separate submission had they not been misled now feel cheated and deceived.[6] The Government’s line that the consultation was only concerned with how and not whether marriage should be redefined is completely unsustainable given that the first two questions of the consultation were explicitly about whether marriage should be redefined.
      [5] http://www.itn.co.uk/UK/63995/church-of-england-says-lack-of-consultation-on-gay-marriage paras 7.1–7.9
      [6] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9825341/Government-powerless-to-protect-teachers-from-sack-over-gay-marriage.html

      The full sad story of government deception here:
      http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-myths-in-governments-gay-marriage.html

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    2. See also some revealing observations by Peter Ould on Gay Marriage ComRes Polls here:
      http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2013/02/05/gay-marriage-%E2%80%93-comres-polls/

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  2. Fr Edward Bryant5 February 2013 at 15:18

    Dear Ancient Briton

    Oh dear! They'll be adding homophobia to the long list of your crimes against the zeitgeist.

    Kind regards to you and the person you are currently sharing your life with (I hope that's sufficiently gender-neutral).

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  3. Complimentary thanks from both of us for your kind regards Father, equally reciprocated.

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