What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Same-sex Marriage Date for Scotland – 31 December 2014

    SONY DSC

    Exciting news this morning – we have a date for the first same-sex marriages in Scotland. The date is within this year – just. The first day on which most couples will be able to get married will be 31 December 2014, the day known in Scotland as Hogmanay. There’s going to be some parties north of the border that night, I can tell you.

    The law will actually change in mid-December, as expected but the Scottish Government has delayed its proposal to increase the notice period to 28 days. Thus, same-sex marriage becomes legal on 16 December 2014. If a couple have been married in another jurisdiction (eg England) then they will be regarded in Scotland as being in a Civil Partnership until midnight on 15 December and regarded as a married couple on 16 December. Couples can give notice to marry on that day and a couple of weeks later can get married on 31 December 2014.

    From 16 December 2014 a couple in extenuating circumstances will be able to apply to be able to get married more quickly – this usually applies if one partner is near to death. It is entirely possible that such a couple may be the first to be married but the big celebrations will come right at the turn of the year.

    From 16 December, trans people can get gender recognition without having to be divorced.

    Couples who have entered a Civil Partnership will be able to apply to a Registrar to convert that to a marriage from 16 December 2014 and it will be free to do so for the first year. (You pay for the marriage certificate just like anyone else but there is no processing fee). Alternatively, couples may pay the usual fees for a marriage ceremony. Couples will be able to be married in a Register Office or by religious or humanist celebrants in certain circumstances.

    Couples will be able to be married in the Scottish Episcopal Church with the permission of the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy and the House of Laity meeting in General Synod.

    Any couple who has entered into a Civil Partnership who converts it to a marriage is welcome if they wish to bring the certificate to St Mary’s where it can be laid on the altar at a Eucharist in thanksgiving for the partnership and for this change in the law.

    Civil Partnerships will continue to be available to same-sex couples (but not to straight couples) and I am more than willing to go on blessing such couples.

    I’m also willing to bless all couples who have married by a Registrar, using the Service of Benediction that I drew people’s attention to earlier.

    Here’s the prayer I will be using to bless couples in church:
    God the Father,
    God the Son,
    God the Holy Spirit,
    bless, preserve and keep you;
    the Lord look upon you with favour and mercy
    and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace,
    that you may so live together in this life
    that in the world to come you may have life everlasting.
    Amen

    Straight couples marrying who wish to express solidarity with gay couples who wish to get married in Scottish Episcopal Churches should get married in a Register Office and come to church for the Benediction of their marriage just like anyone else wanting to get married.

    I’ve yet to decide whether or not to continue to perform legal marriages for straight couples in church after 31 December 2014.

    Congratulations are in order not only to those who will be getting married soon but also to all those campaigners who worked to change the law, to parliamentarians who voted for it and civil servants who have been working on it. The brilliant campaigning of the Equality Network has been a powerful force in bringing about change. And inevitably, my mind turns in awe to the members of St Mary’s Cathedral, particularly those belonging to the LGBT group who went out collecting signatures to bring in petition to the Scottish Parliament long before the big campaigns got going.

    We changed the world.

     

     

    Picture Credit – Peter Kolkman Copyright – Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved

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9 responses to “Another Day, Another Mission Strategy is launched”

  1. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    three diocesan wishes?
    (i) Scrap every Diocesan body, council and group; let Bishops commend and expound the Gospel, and care for their clergy.
    (ii) Devolve every decision to the locally accountable group; let priests be priests and not bureaucrats.
    (iii) Let go of the Anglican communion for the sake of the Kingdom.

    Reply
  2. Rev Ruth Avatar
    Rev Ruth

    You know, in all the years I’ve been a member of the SEC I didn’t know about the Diocesan Fairy Wands. But now you mention them I can see that there must indeed be such a thing. In the spirit of openness I would like to see them processed in at the beginning of General Synod with the candles and placed on the Table. Carried by small children, perhaps?

    Do you know if they are different colours?

    And where is The Diocese of Argyll and the Isles’ fairy wand at the moment? Is someone else looking after it and therefore has two? Or is it waiting in a dusty filing cabinet for the drawer to be flung open and set free?

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Please allow me to jump in before anyone from the Diocese Across the Water feels obliged….

    Ruth, you should know by now. It is the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles. Not the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles. Nor indeed the Judean Peoples’ Front.

    Reply
  4. Scottish Roundup

    […] To wrap up Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow explains that as a new day dawns a new mission statement is launched […]

    Reply
  5. Kenny Avatar
    Kenny

    As the Chair of a Regional Council, and a member of Diocesan Council, I feel well and truly “whupped” by your words, Kelvin. If I were the MDO or the Bishop or Dean, I would feel similarly put down. There are folk who are genuinely trying to put together a strategy for mission that works and is not smothered by cynicism from the outset. I think a bit of support or a word of encouragement or advice may have been a bit more helpful.

    It is true that some Regional Councils may not be working, but that certainly isn’t helped by clergy staying away from them because it’s bad for their health. On the contrary, it needs these priests to be there, to stand up and question what’s going on or not going on and help shape them into a body that works. The theory is a good one, but Regional Councils will fail simply because some folk will share your attitude towards them. As a member of the Bishop’s Staff Group and a member of Diocesan Council, I find it totally incredible that you choose not to attend and disseminate information from these two bodies, and indeed incredible that you have not taken your Regional Council by the scruff of the neck and shown it how it can be more productive and engage more dynamically in current Diocesan policy.

    I sit on Diocesan Council too, and am amazed at the power you think it has! Very often, it seems to me, we cannot make any decisions until they are ratified by the Bishop’s Staff Group, or things come from the Staff Group that we are told to ratify. Debate is sometimes rare and I feel Council is a pretty toothless being, and exists only to ratify what others in more lofty positions want to happen. (Paisley was a prime example of this).

    It’s dead easy to sit there and snipe at those who are trying their damndest to wake the sleeping and encourage growth and life. Instead, we need to pull together and make sure something is put in place that is effective and that we can all buy into.

    Maybe the Clergy Conference will give us a start, but banging in and damaging the process before it has begun is perhaps not the most constructive thing you’ve done of late.

    Reply
  6. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Hi Kenny – thanks for your comments. I think you are quite right in some of the things you say, though not in others.

    I agree that it was not a constructive way to engage with this to put all of my grumpiness into a blog post and wish now that I had kept quiet.

    There are some things which you’ve not got entirely right though. I’m not a member of the Diocesan Council, as it happens. Also, your assumptions about the way in which decisions were made about Paisley are not quite right. However, learning from what you’ve said, I’m not inclined to post more about that on here, but I will be saying more about it in meetings as appropriate.

    My comments about Regional Councils are influenced by two things only – the local ones which I have been to and the reports from the Regions which are given at Diocesan Council. (I usually find these quite shocking).

    As it happens, I disagree with you about clergy health. Should regional council meetings ever affect the health of clergy, its certainly time to stop going. We don’t think nearly enough about one another’s wellbeing.

    I do however take the general point that my blog post was unhelpful. Though it does still represent my views, I’m sorry that I posted it online in the first place and wish I had thought twice about it.

    I guess lots of us who keep blogs sometimes make mistakes and this one was one of mine.

    Reply
  7. Kenny Avatar
    Kenny

    Now I feel like a heel! I’m lucky inasmuch as what I post is largely ignored or unread, so I can rant when I like without too many consequences, unless it annoys or causes hassle for the upper echelons in our little Church.

    I know, of course that you are not a member of Council, but you do attend as Provost of the Cathedral and are allowed to contribute.

    You did say that Regional Council were bad for your health and well-being. I am concerned about that, and yes, I wish we were all a bit more concerned for each other, but my suggestion was that you took steps to ensure that these meetings were a little more constructive and actually did what they were set up to do. I agree that reports back to Diocesan Council are often dreadful. I shiver when I hear reported that the highlight was a Coffee Morning held in Little St Reubens, but how do we change that?

    I often think that the old RCC was much much better at disseminating information down to parishes, and every parish felt part of the processes of Church Government, but new models are indeed needed. I think new processes may well emerge from this new initiative.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about the negativity in this particular post. You seem to be redeeming yourself in subsequent jottings.

    The truth is that we need you, and your vision, on board, and the Clergy Conference may well be a good place to begin.

    Reply
  8. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    And we’ve got yet another Mission Strategy document to get our teeth into at General Synod! Hurrah!

    And you know what I think of that one?

    Well, let me tell you, I think………

    No, maybe I’ve learnt my lesson.

    For now, anyway.

    Reply
  9. Kenny Avatar
    Kenny

    I just can’t wait… and I hope tou DO say what you think!

    Reply

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