What is in Kelvin's Head?

My own response to the government

19/03/2013

Phew, just finished writing my own response to the current round of consultation on changes to marriage law in Scotland.

This one is not about the principle of introducing marriage for same-sex couples but about how such proposals will be implemented.

It is more complex than you think because marriage law is more complex than you think!

Anyway, here is my response, if anyone is interested:

Consultation response Kelvin Holdsworth – March 2013

To save you time wading through it, here’s the most interesting thing I’ve said:

I believe that if someone is authorised to conduct a straight coupleâ€™s marriage then they should automatically be authorised to conduct marriages of same-sex couples. The law should apply equally to people and what has been proposed is not equality. For these reasons, I do not support the current proposals for determining who can and who can not conduct the marriage of a same-sex couple.

If churches wish to limit the ability of a celebrant to conduct a marriage then they should continue to be able to do that through their own internal disciplinary procedure.

I look forward to being able to celebrate marriages for same-sex couples one day in my congregation (St Maryâ€™s Cathedral, Glasgow). I note with interest that once the state licenses marriages for same-sex couples, my own denomination (The Scottish Episcopal Church) will automatically have an authorised liturgy for blessing such couples â€“ the service of Benediction, which is explicitly authorised in Canon Law for use with couples whose marriage is legal but which has not been performed according to the rites of the church.

The consultation closes on Wednesday. More details here:
https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/family-law/marriagebill

LGBT, marriage, same-sex couples

6 responses to “Repeat post – wiki video”

Tim

20/02/2009

Ah goodie. I’m sure you’ll let us know how it goes 🙂

(What an *awful*ly annoying voice-over on the video…)

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Erp

20/02/2009

Do you have the critical mass of people times effort/person to get the wiki going?

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Stewart

20/02/2009

Sounds a wonderful idea – now what topic can we use and discuss to improve our worship.

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kelvin

20/02/2009

That is a good question ERP. At the moment, the wiki is really working as an intranet. (Or perhaps an extranet). It means that several of us can work together on a page without being physically located together.

One of the things that are very prevalent in churches is the presence of dispersed teams. Keeping everyone one track by e-mail can be quite hard.

A good example of what we are doing at the moment, is using a private, protected part of the wiki so that I can work on wedding bookings with our weddings organiser.

In time, and with help from others, I will be developing various bits of cathedral documentation. We are good at doing things in St Mary’s but less good at writing them down.

Thus, a liturgical manual is one of the goals of the wiki project.

Also things like “How to organise a ceildih in St Mary’s” and “How we organise champagne for Easter Day”.

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Lay clerk

20/02/2009

“How to choose the post-Evensong pub”

And the answer to both the ones you posed is obviously “get the choir to do it”!

😉

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Robin

21/02/2009

I remember signing up for “St Mary’s Hub” a while back, but I didn’t record its URL, and I can’t now find it. Is that the wiki you’re talking about, or are you now starting from scratch with something different?

I’m just curious to see how you’re using the technology, in case there’s anything we can learn and apply up here.

Robin

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