Can I suggest you head over to Akma’s blog to read his post about the death of Aaron Swartz. It is moving and thoughtful and expresses more eloquently than I can how I feel about this death.
Most people won’t know Aaron’s name. However we all get the benefit of his work.
As Akma says, “the churches have an intrinsic interest in communication, free communication, profligate communication.”
Hear, hear.
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).
I had a baptism this morning, so I was not preaching. (The baptism is the sermon). However, for those who want a sermon, here is one that I preached earlier…. I wonder how many of you are familiar with the portraits of Picasso. I believe that there have been a few documentaries on the television…
I've put together a new website over the last couple of days.It is a campaign website for the local political party which I belong to.Oh, and there is some rather interesting news on it about someone that you know, so you might want to take a look.The url is http://www.stirlinglibdems.org.uk/kelvin/html/ though it will also soon…
As part of what I want to say tonight, I want to reflect on the year that has gone by. It has been a particularly busy year at St Saviour?s. The numbers of people coming to services was up on last year?s figures. Now, there are always particular factors which can affect numbers ? the…
I do weary of having to defend the parking spaces outside the church from schemes to “improve” the road junction. Having just managed to save enough space for hearses and wedding cars a couple of months ago, there is now a plan to put a bus stop next to the west wall of the church,…
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