• It’s Time

    Just watch this video – there’s people and places that you may well recognise.

    I’m very pleased to be one of the faces in the video above, which has been produced by the Equality Network to galvanise the last months of the campaign for equal marriage in Scotland. Political leaders, celebrities, thinkers and so-called ordinary folk are uniting around the idea that same-sex couples should have access to the same rights, priviledges and responsibilties as straight couples.

    It’s time for the law in Scotland to allow same-sex couples to marry. It’s time for the law to be changed to allow a couple to stay married when one goes through a gender transition. It’s time for gay and lesbian couples to have not merely the same rights as straight couples but also the same social status. In short, it is time for change.

    The video has been many months in the planning and producing. I think it is exciting, joyful and a credit to all involved.

    One of the most impressive thing about the equal marriage campaigning in Scotland is that it has been relentlessly positive.

    I was partly preaching about this yesterday, the day that the Sunday Mail (which is not the Mail on Sunday!) came out gloriously in favour of the equal marriage campaign with a double page spread and an excellent leader column. The Sunday Mail is the widest read paper in Scotland, the Sunday sibling of the Daily Record. I’ll post that sermon on here in a day or two. For now, I’ll just watch the video above one more time.

    Equal Marriage is mainstream. Not, as someone suggested to me recently, merely the concern of a tiny minority.

    This is an idea whose time has come.

    Update
    Beth’s blogging about this too – she was there!
    And so is Christine McIntosh – she thinks it is time for change

7 responses to “Remember the Anglican Covenant?”

  1. chris Avatar

    A timely post, with diocesan synod coming up. May well print out. (There is virtually no signal for online devices to be used usefully in the Highland Gathering Halls in Oban. Who knew?)

  2. Anglican Covenant: reports and reactions…

    The Church Times reports this week on the progress of voting in English dioceses on the Anglican Covenant: Covenant tastes defeat in diocesan voting. ALMOST a quarter of C of E dioceses have now voted against the Anglican Covenant. It……

  3. Susan Sheppard Hedges Avatar
    Susan Sheppard Hedges

    “. . .if there is any truth in that thesis, its days are numbered. . .”
    As we say in my home state, ‘your lips to God’s ears.’

  4. Jonathan Clatworthy Avatar

    Excellent post Kelvin.
    If the Covenant does get rejected in England, we’ll certainly need a period of time asking ourselves what really went wrong and how we could do things better. And Scotland will be well placed to set the ball rolling.

    1. kelvin Avatar

      Thanks Jonathan – and thanks for your article on alternatives to the Covenant which we are looking at next week at our Diocesan Synod next week to balance the stuff from the Anglican Communion Office.

  5. Paul Bagshaw Avatar
    Paul Bagshaw

    “Some have worried that we might be the first province to declare ourselves out of sorts with the Anglican Covenant.”

    They need not worry. The Philippines have already voted against it.

    It also seems probable that New Zealand will vote against.

    The Irish voted for it but with the caveat that it would not supplant the existing governing documents – though it’s not clear whether they would be able to sustain this.

    Source: http://noanglicancovenant.org/background.html#cofe

  6. Alan T Perry Avatar

    Thanks for this, Kelvin!

    What really amazes me is that the Covenant has done so well with virtually no attempt to put forward an argument (with reference to the actual text) as to why it is an unalloyed Good Thing. Proponents claim it will save the Communion without explaining just how it will do that. Those voting for it are voting for a black box.

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