What is in Kelvin's Head?

Husbands and Wifes

16/07/2013

Yesterday I heard the news that the House of Lords has given a third reading to the new legislation which will allow gay couples to get married in England and Wales. It should get the nod from the House of Commons today and then go to the Queen for Royal Assent by the end of the week. The first marriages under this legislation will take place sometime next year once registrars have been re-trained and new forms printed.

I expect we will have a period where all kinds of other institutions will have to re-write their forms and policies too. One can imagine married same-sex couples getting grumpy when they try to fill in an insurance form or try to join a social network and they are offered wife or husband when they want to be offered a box to tick for the opposite.

It is only fairly recently that I’ve heard same-sex couples who were married speaking freely of their husband or wife. We have one same-sex couple connected to St Mary’s who are married, having been hitched in South Africa. When I was in Canada and the USA I was hearing the use of husband by some married gay men and wife by some of the lesbian couples I met. It was by no means universal but it was becoming common and rather ordinary though no doubt that takes a little time.

Part of me remembers that I once was against same-sex marriage and that it was partly because I thought that gender-neutrality had something to offer. Were gay couples not leading the world by insisting on having partners rather than the somewhat possessive alternative nouns?

I think I was wrong about that. What was needed was equality and some people need to use just such possessive language to describe their relationships in the same way that straight married couples sometimes reject it and use the partner language.

Inevitably there is now going to be a period of reflection and consultation whilst the government tries to decide whether to open Civil Partnership up to straight couples. I expect that will happen though I’m not that keen. It seems to me that the right way forward was simply to incorporate Civil Partnership with Civil Marriage. However, I suspect that though I’ve been on the winning side of most arguments about changes in marriage law, that is not one that I’m likely to win now.

Very many churches have proclaimed themselves to be against same-sex marriage as it will somehow undermine and threaten the institution of marriage itself.

I don’t think that is true. I do think that retaining Civil Partnership and opening it up to straight couples does undermine the institution of marriage though. Had the churches engaged in these arguments in more constructive ways than most of them did then they might have had an influence which strengthened marriage. Instead, I suspect that in the long term they will have weakened it.

Still, we’ll not worry about that today. We will simply fly a rainbow flag in celebration for all those soon to be married couples in England and Wales. And recognise that the last battles still have to be won in Scotland.

Alleluia for England!

And once more unto the breach.

England and Wales, House of Lords, LGBT, Same Sex Marriage

52 responses to “Inclusive Language – again”

ryan

11/10/2010

Kelvin – that cracked me almost as much as your last tweet on the left of your blog ;-)!

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Jimmy

11/10/2010

Ryan, although you address your comment to Kelvin like I am not there. I assume you are referring to my poem, I can assure you that it does not crack me up watching you making any opinion you may have untenable.

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1. kelvin
  
  11/10/2010
  
  No Jimmy – I think Ryan was indeed referring to my last comment, above.
  
  Reply
Jimmy

11/10/2010

Thank you Kelvin and Sorry Ryan.

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ryan

11/10/2010

No worries! Was indeed referring to the v.amusing coming out day tweets at the side.

I’m not sure there’s ever existed anyone, anywhere,at any time, of whom it could be said that *all* their opinions are ‘untenable’, so such rhetoric is dehumanising at best. Apropos nothing, I was moved to google the poetic stylings of the great David Brent. Who needs Auden? 😉
http://murfinsandburglars.com/2009/04/14/bad-poetry-for-tuesday-david-brent-edition/

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Peter

12/10/2010

Kelvin; no, I think it distracts. It simp;ly reminds us that this is how your mind works: you make connections and delight in that sort of word-play. However, to sharpen up my point. Thank you for helping me to realise that, for some, ‘family’ is not a positive word in the way in which I experience it. For my part, this willl mean that I will be more careful about its use when others might feel excluded (and therefore hurt). Mutatis mutandi can you accept that I feel offended by what seems to be merely a casual linking between family and the f word? These are sensitive areas, but sensibilities are by no means confined to those who find family a painful or unhelpful concept.

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Simon

29/10/2010

I am slightly nervous aboaut the alternatives to the 1982 Liturgy, not because I don’t share the inclusive sentiments expressed above (I do). I fear that, as so often in the history of the church, the steps we take to avoid one kind of mistake in the way we talk about God can lead us into another. The avoidance of pronouns as a measure to achieve inclusivity produces inelegant, strained and stilted English. How would it be if one were to use it in day-to-day speech? ‘I saw John this morning. I asked John’s how John’s health was. John said that John was over his flu, and hoped to be back at work on Monday’. This may not in itself seem to be a problem. But in fact, what very quickly happens when we adopt this idiom in addressing/expressing God, is that the very idea of a personal God begins to recede. My basic instinct is that the church’s language of pulbic prayer is properly anchored in that of the scriptures. There are dangers in departing from this. The perceived problem (rightly perceived) is perhaps better tackled by good teaching about the nature of God, than by linguistic contortions that produce stilted prayers, and possibly a less real and vivid idea of God.

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Melissa

15/11/2013

About the family imagery – another reason to drop it in church is for the sake ones who, like me, do actually have the signifying family relationships.

There is too much pressure on day to day life with children when that life is forced to serve as some kind of example or testimony or witness to the world – or more likely one’s church friends – about the nature of God.

I think it sours love because in that kind of scheme loving children is more fundamentally a means to an end.

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