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?

    ,

3 responses to “So out of touch”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    The *other* half of that `presbyterian model’ quote is truly barf-worthy especially given several unpleasant incidents hitting the press in the past 6 months.

    I think `Whenever there are progressive values around’ might be happening at the level of society as a whole, not just in churches, though.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I’d rather like to think that it would be obvious to people in the various churches that no one system owns a “reflection, consultation, debate and discernment” model. Such ways of working can be found in different churches. Failures to work in such ways call also be found in different church systems.

    Reply
  3. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    We are hijacked by people who scream and scream until they are sick (they can, you know) and lack the guts to say ‘Here is the bucket’. The attempt to ‘keep all the balls in the holes’ shows a total lack of any grasp of what leadership means.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Previous Posts

  • Christ the King

    Hear the Christians sing. Crown him with many crowns! O worship the King all glorious above! Hail redeemer, King divine! Jesus Christ, superstar! What is it with belief in Jesus which makes people sing out these things? The evidence of his life alone is not impressive. Born to a family on the run. Preached sermons…

  • Monarchy & STV

    Two worlds collide in my weekend. To Perth today for a conference o­n the proposed new method of electing people for local, perhaps even national government, STV. Single Transferable Voting is fair but complicated. Then tomorrow, the feast of Christ the King, which I am making much of in church. Choir, string quartet and special…

  • Toadstools

    A rather fine circle of toadstools has appeared in the front rectory garden which has given me much pleasure in the last 24 hours. I've told the cat that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, but she just yawns.

  • Church AGM

    Church AGM last night went very smoothly. It is not the same without a half hour controversy over the position of the bishop's chair, but we somehow we managed to get by without this. Yesterday was spent doing the annual church statistics, something which I enjoy doing more than I would normally let o­n. I…