What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Straight Civil Partnerships Question

03/01/2015

The question is this. If civil partnership is opened to straight couples then would someone in such a partnership be eligible to be considered for ordination?

It is a simple question but carries enormous complexity with it and can help to illuminate where we are in the changing world of legal relationship states.

I first raised this question in June 2013 in a series of 10 unanswered questions about marriage, most of which remain unanswered even now.

The thing is, it is entirely possible that some straight couples within the different jurisdictions of the UK may soon achieve their hope to be in civil partnerships. I’m aware of both a legal challenge to the current law that is proceeding and also government consultations coming from both Holyrood and Westminster.

Now, first of all I need to declare that I’ve always been against extending Civil Partnerships to straight people and thought that the best way forward was to turn all gay couples’ civil partnerships into civil marriages. However that has not happened and so we have a situation where there is a basic inequality – gay couples have the option of either marriage or civil partnerships. And lo, inequality is something that we can’t really tolerate in modern society and so something will need to be done. I can’t really see any alternative to opening civil partnership to straight couples. It seems to me to be only a matter of time and whether I like it or not, that is what will happen.

So, will someone in a straight relationship who is in a civil partnership be eligible for ordination. In Scotland is it well established that someone in a same-sex relationship in a civil partnership is eligible for ordination.

This is not merely a rhetorical question. All these kinds of questions affect real people. As individuals and couples try to work out the best thing for their own relationships they are currently left second-guessing how they are going to be perceived by the churches that they may belong to.

I am aware of straight couples in the church who would be interested in entering a civil partnership rather than a marriage.

But what’s that about.

I’ve been opposed to civil partnerships continuing because I saw them as intrinsically products of discrimination. They were a legal confection devised to look like marriage and to onto which gay couples projected familiar signs and symbols to get as near as they could to the gold standard of marriage. However, things have now changed.

It seems to me that straight couples looking for civil partnerships are clearly saying that they want something that is different to marriage and people like me probably need to get used to the idea that it is just different and not less than marriage now even though it once was.

The church has not really caught up with modern sexual relations in so many areas. As I listen to people twenty years younger than me their presumption is that serial monogamy is a good thing. They believe in faithfulness. They don’t think cheating is acceptable. However, they also are entering into relationships which they themselves would acknowledge might not last forever. The permanence of marriage is not where they are at and I suspect that the civil partnership option might well appeal to such couples.

The thing is, marriage carries with it a whole load of presumptions, not least that the end of a marriage is a Very Bad Thing. Divorce still carries stigma with it.

I suspect that at least some of those seeking civil partnership rather than marriage are choosing to reject the possibility of divorce as they feel that the dissolution of a civil partnership carries fewer negative connotations than being divorced.

But back to the straight civil partnerships question. Would someone in a same-sex relationship in a civil partnership (presuming that such things will soon become a reality) be able to be ordained in the Scottish Episcopal Church – or the other mainstream churches for that matter?

If not, why not?

So far as I can tell, Canon Law is silent on any relationships other than straight married ones.

Ordination, straight civil partnerships

11 responses to “We should be wary of declaring martyrs”

Eamonn

08/04/2015

Agree totally. I find myself in a comparable position vis-à-vis the mass canonisations of the ‘martyrs’ of the Spanish Civil War, which assume that all those worthy of commemoration were on the same side.

Reply
Michael Russell

08/04/2015

Anyone killed for professing their faith is a martyr. ISIS is an equal opportunity martyring machine. The various faith communities targeted, including Islamic ones, should build common ground to dismember ISIS. I simply fail to see the point in quibbling about who is a real martyr and who is not.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  08/04/2015
  
  Is it your view that someone is a martyr for Christianity because they cannot recite a verse from the Qur’an?
  
  It seems to me that whilst some men and women of violence are being claimed to be martyrs if they should be shot by law enforcement agencies whilst pursuing paths of terror that there’s a huge amount to be gained by determining who is a martyr and who isn’t.
  
  Reply
  1. Bro David
    
    08/04/2015
    
    Not being able to explain a quranic verse was merely a way of discerning if someone was not Muslim. However, is it not just as great a presumption to think they weren’t martyrs, as to think that they were.
    
    The early church seemed to accept that all who were crucified or sent to the lions for their Christianity were martyrs. Perhaps not all did so as a statement of faith, but were nominal Christians caught up with the rest. But the church didn’t seem obliged to footnote who didn’t qualify.
    
    I’m not sure that I understand why your are hesitant. It seems a quibble. I don’t think anyone is leaning toward canonization here, just speaking of them as a whole.
    
    Reply
Jo

08/04/2015

The SEC still keeps the feast of Charles, King and Martyr. I don’t think we get to be too narrow in defining who is or isn’t a martyr.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  09/04/2015
  
  Actually, Jo – that’s not quite right. The SEC keeps the commemoration of “Charles I, King, 1649”
  
  There’s no mention of him being a martyr in the calendar (and the current calendar superseded and replaced the one in the prayer book). There are plenty of people who are named as martyrs such as Agnes the week before Charles or indeed “Charles Mackenzie of Central Africa, Bishop, Missionary, Martyr, 1862” the very day after Charles.
  
  It would appear that rather careful thought was given to whether to describe Charles as a martyr and though he is included in the calendar (not least for founding one of our dioceses) any notion of martyrdom is absent.
  
  Reply
  1. Jo
    
    09/04/2015
    
    Thanks for the correction, I hadn’t realised there was that detail of difference between the SEC and CofE.
    
    Reply
Father David

10/04/2015

Of course, King Charles was a Martyr and is commemorated as such on January 31st each year. The trouble is that Anglicans have no real mechanism for declaring people to be saints or martyrs. Having referred to two recent horrific incidents on the African continent where Christians were slaughtered simply for being Christians, I wonder what the Provost of Glasgow thinks about the Ugandan Martyrs of the 19th century and would you personally regard them to be martyrs? As you know 23 Anglicans and 22 Roman Catholics were killed by the Kabaka for refusing to submit to King Mwanga’s corporal intimacies. The Roman Catholics were beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1964 but what of our Anglican Ugandan brothers – where they equally to be regarded as martyrs, or would you deny them that honorific title?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  10/04/2015
  
  The Scottish Episcopal Calendar is again very clear: “Charles Lwanga and his companions, 1886, Janani Luwum, Bishop, 1977, Martyrs of Uganda”
  
  I have no idea why anyone would say that the SEC has no means of declaring someone to be a martyr. Not only do we have such a mechanism, we use it.
  
  Reply
Father David

10/04/2015

It would be interesting to know how this mechanism works in the SEC in deciding who is eligible to join the noble army of martyrs? Bishop Edward King of Lincoln is widely regarded as a saint South of the Border. I think it was Archbishop Lang who was asked how it was decided that Bishop King had reached sainthood status and the answer was that he was given a Collect, Epistle and Gospel to commemorate his saint’s day – 8th March, the day of his Heavenly Birthday.

Reply
Harry Campbell

19/04/2015

“We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/isis-video-purports-to-show-massacre-of-two-groups-of-ethiopian-christians

What a shame the Archbishop couldn’t have said something similarly inclusive about the victims of the Kenyan massacre, and all such massacres, without caring about what their religion affiliation may or may not have been.

Reply