- Boris Johnson will be replaced with a Prime Minister who is more competent, more right wing and more difficult to beat.
- A good year for Michael Gove (who is almost invisible at the moment).
- Church of Scotland General Assembly votes to allow same-sex couples to be married in church. More significantly, almost no-one leaves in a huff.
- No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England.
- US Republican Party do well at the November midterms.
- Midnight Mass will happen at St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow – some people will still be wearing masks but it won’t be mandatory.
- Lots of people discover that cryptocurrency is not the sure thing that they thought. (Losses will disproportionately affect young people).
- Nicola Sturgeon will be forced to announce a proposed date for an Independence Referendum against her better judgement.
- Lambeth Conference will take place but some people forced to participate virtually due to continued pandemic in developing world. (No new sanctions against pro-gay provinces).
- Working from home/hybrid working becomes normalised for big companies. Consequent increase in ransomware demands.
4 responses to “The SNP and Equal Marriage”
-
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.
-
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).
-
I met him when Ruth and I did the Big Questions earlier this year. Apparently, Haldane is an advisor to Pope Benedict….
-
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).
Previous Posts
-
What should ecumenical and interfaith dialogue actually be about?
I’ve taken, in the manner of Jeremy Corbyn, to asking for suggestions for things that I might write about on the blog. This article stems from a suggestion by Hugh Foy via twitter. It seems to me that in Scotland, things are very different within the ecumenical movement to where we are thinking about interfaith.…
-
Some Bisexuals are Christian (and there’s lots of them)
Today is designated as Bisexual Visibility Day and it seems to me that it is about time that I said something about the B in LGBT that is so often silenced or invisible. Some Christians are bisexual. In fact rather a lot of Christians are bisexual. Rather a lot of people now describe themselves as…
-
Don’t worry – it just religion. It won’t bother you.
Preached on 20 September 2015 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Don’t worry, its just a religious thing. It won’t bother you.” I’d just arrived in the village. And she said, ““Don’t worry, its just a religious thing. It won’t bother…
-
Dear Straight People – Greenbelt Talk 2015
Here’s the talk I recently gave at Greenbelt. In the course of what I was saying, I threw these badges out into the crowd. The spectre of homophobia stalks the church. It is, in the language that Jesus would have understood, one of the principalities, one of the very powers of darkness. It is a…
Leave a Reply