What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Equal Marriage – Questions people haven’t thought of #1

    Here’s one for church folk and any passing ethicist.

    Suppose a couple get a civil partnership and they then have a service of blessing in an Episcopal Church – rings, promises, nuptial mass, the whole enchilada, with lovely prayers drawn from the Scottish Episcopal marriage liturgy. (As happens).

    Supposing that is all done with and then suddenly the government come along and offer to make those who have civil partnerships married at the stroke of a pen.

    What is the moral difference between that and a straight couple getting married in church?

    [My interest in this question is to see whether the answers divide between people who say, “There’s no difference, therefore same-sex couples don’t need marriage” and those who say, “There’s no difference, so we should stop shilly-shallying about and wed same-sex couples on the same basis as every else.”]

    Furthermore, might couples expect to go through another ceremony to mark this change of status or not?

    ,

One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

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