What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • “Marriage is a sacrament”

    Here’s the third and final video that I’ll be posting this week from the collection of equal marriage campaign videos.

    It is Jaye and Ruth who are a married couple who are members of St Mary’s. They had to travel to South Africa to get married. They’ve been very much some of the most visible faces of this campaign. Pictures of them throwing a bouquet for a crowd of expectant journalists still crop up as one of the iconic images of the campaign.

    In this video, the points they make include:

    • Marriage is a sacrament
    • It was very important to have God’s blessing on the marriage from the beginning
    • When you are a person of faith, your whole life is affected by that faith
    • It is an issue of equality and fairness – we all need equal rights and equal responsibities

    The first big vote in the Scottish Parliament is today at about 8 pm with debate from about 5 pm beforehand and will be available to watch live online. Anyone still wanting to contact their MSPs can do so very quickly and easily using this link.

    Here’s what Jaye and Ruth had to say:

    , , ,

4 responses to “The SNP and Equal Marriage”

  1. Indy Avatar
    Indy

    I think the issue is that the SNP Government is going to authorise religious same sex marriages as well as civil ones.

    It would be an obvious compromise to allow civil weddings but not religious ones – that seems to be the route the UK Govt will go down.

    It would be tempting for the SG to do the same. It’s a neat solution – that way they could say there is no question of religious denominations being forced to perform same sex marriages. It will only be civil ceremonies.

    And, let’s face it, although there are some religious denominationa which support same sex marriage – Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagan Federation etc – how many Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagans etc are actually out there? They are very much outnumbered by the Catholics, Muslims and fundamentalist Protestants aren’t they?

    But for some reason the SG has decided to go for the option which allows religious as well as civil same sex marriages. We can only assume that, for them, that is actually an issue of principle, of support for religious freedom.

    But it makes it more complicated doesn’t it? Because they have to find a way to protect the rights of religious denominations which wish to conduct same sex marriages while also protecting the rights of religious denominations who do not want to conduct same sex marriages. And do that in the context of legislation which protects religious rights, freedom of speech and equality which is not within their control.

    Reply
  2. Lazarus Avatar
    Lazarus

    Putting aside any issues of substance here, I’m not sure you’re being quite accurate in your interpretation of John Haldane’s Newsnicht appearance. He was careful to distinguish between civil partnerships and same sex marriage, saying that the latter had to be discussed within an understanding of the ‘common good’ (a discussion which the programme didn’t have time to allow). I’d be amazed if he’s changed his opposition to same sex marriage (expressed quite regularly in the media eg in the Beyond Belief programme here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019rlng/Beyond_Belief_Same_Sex_Marriage/).

    As to whether Haldane was criticizing the Cardinal -I suspect any interpretation along these lines would require quite a degree of cynicism (or wishful thinking!) given his previously highly supportive attitude (eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6707465.stm).

    Reply
  3. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    I met him when Ruth and I did the Big Questions earlier this year. Apparently, Haldane is an advisor to Pope Benedict….

    Reply
  4. Erp Avatar
    Erp

    There may not be many Unitarians, Quakers, Reform Jews in Scotland but there are a lot of Humanist weddings (I believe in Scotland in 2010 the number of weddings by Humanist celebrants exceeded the number of Catholic weddings) so they are the biggest group performing legally recognized opposite-sex marriages who would like to perform legally recognized same-sex marriages (as opposed to a ceremony after a same-sex marriage has been registered at the registry office).

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • General Assembly – Web Coverage

    Watched a debate from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland this afternoon via their live web-feed. The Assembly is always impressive. Today, the standard of debate was, as usual, much higher than anything that we ever achieve in the SEC. Both the contributions to the debate and the way that the business was…

  • Lambeth Conference – Some are Welcome in this Place

    The BBC reports that +Gene Robinson will not be invited to the Lambeth Conference next year. The decision making process now becomes very local and very personal. The last time I asked any of the Scottish bishops directly whether they would go to Lambeth if anyone was excluded was a couple of years ago. Without…

  • Going Up

    Those arriving for the Ascension Day Choral Mass last night were greeted with a ladder stretching from floor to very high ceiling of the Cathedral. One of those little ironies – we had decided to play How many Episcopalians does it take to to change a lightbulb? on Ascension Day itself. Amongst other glories, last…

  • Holy Things

    I’ve spent part of this week working in London. Flew down, sleeper back up again last night. In a rather tight schedule, I managed to fit a couple of extras in. The most notable of these was an all too short visit to the Sacred exhibition at the British Library and a night at the…