What is in Kelvin's Head?

Same-sex Marriage Date for Scotland – 31 December 2014

13/10/2014

Exciting news this morning – we have a date for the first same-sex marriages in Scotland. The date is within this year – just. The first day on which most couples will be able to get married will be 31 December 2014, the day known in Scotland as Hogmanay. There’s going to be some parties north of the border that night, I can tell you.

The law will actually change in mid-December, as expected but the Scottish Government has delayed its proposal to increase the notice period to 28 days. Thus, same-sex marriage becomes legal on 16 December 2014. If a couple have been married in another jurisdiction (eg England) then they will be regarded in Scotland as being in a Civil Partnership until midnight on 15 December and regarded as a married couple on 16 December. Couples can give notice to marry on that day and a couple of weeks later can get married on 31 December 2014.

From 16 December 2014 a couple in extenuating circumstances will be able to apply to be able to get married more quickly – this usually applies if one partner is near to death. It is entirely possible that such a couple may be the first to be married but the big celebrations will come right at the turn of the year.

From 16 December, trans people can get gender recognition without having to be divorced.

Couples who have entered a Civil Partnership will be able to apply to a Registrar to convert that to a marriage from 16 December 2014 and it will be free to do so for the first year. (You pay for the marriage certificate just like anyone else but there is no processing fee). Alternatively, couples may pay the usual fees for a marriage ceremony. Couples will be able to be married in a Register Office or by religious or humanist celebrants in certain circumstances.

Couples will be able to be married in the Scottish Episcopal Church with the permission of the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy and the House of Laity meeting in General Synod.

Any couple who has entered into a Civil Partnership who converts it to a marriage is welcome if they wish to bring the certificate to St Mary’s where it can be laid on the altar at a Eucharist in thanksgiving for the partnership and for this change in the law.

Civil Partnerships will continue to be available to same-sex couples (but not to straight couples) and I am more than willing to go on blessing such couples.

I’m also willing to bless all couples who have married by a Registrar, using the Service of Benediction that I drew people’s attention to earlier.

Here’s the prayer I will be using to bless couples in church:
God the Father,
God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit,
bless, preserve and keep you;
the Lord look upon you with favour and mercy
and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace,
that you may so live together in this life
that in the world to come you may have life everlasting.
Amen

Straight couples marrying who wish to express solidarity with gay couples who wish to get married in Scottish Episcopal Churches should get married in a Register Office and come to church for the Benediction of their marriage just like anyone else wanting to get married.

I’ve yet to decide whether or not to continue to perform legal marriages for straight couples in church after 31 December 2014.

Congratulations are in order not only to those who will be getting married soon but also to all those campaigners who worked to change the law, to parliamentarians who voted for it and civil servants who have been working on it. The brilliant campaigning of the Equality Network has been a powerful force in bringing about change. And inevitably, my mind turns in awe to the members of St Mary’s Cathedral, particularly those belonging to the LGBT group who went out collecting signatures to bring in petition to the Scottish Parliament long before the big campaigns got going.

We changed the world.

Picture Credit – Peter Kolkman Copyright – Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved

LGBT, marriage, Same Sex Marriage

27 responses to “A Response to the Prime Minister”

Patsy

20/12/2011

Dear Kelv

You make some interesting points. But do you have to be so rude? All the “Dave” stuff is a bit juvenile. If you want to have a serious debate surely you can show a bit of respect? Also maybe a little charity – was it really necessary to be quite so snide (I almost said “nasty”) about the PM’s rather hesitant comments on his own faith?

Reply
1. william
  
  21/12/2011
  
  Well said and well put – Patsy.
  Sadly ‘revisionists’ don’t seem to recognise ‘rudeness’, lack of ‘charity’, ‘unattractiveness’ in what they say and do within the church, although they believe they recognise them and see them in others.
  It could be that blindness to all of this is because of the paucity of grace in their mindset; Pelagians don’t feel the need for grace or atonement as much as the rest of us.
  They seem to assume God is always smiling on them, and is always pleased with the worship they present to Him, whatever its content or assumptions. Even in whatever behaviour they engage in, even boast of.
  In Jeremiah’s day, in contrast, the religious were warned frequently with words like: peace, peace – when there was no peace. But most did not have ears to hear such warnings.
  Maybe your wisdom will strike a chord of caution.
  
  Reply
  1. kelvin
    
    21/12/2011
    
    >They seem to assume God is always smiling on them
    
    Oh yes! Oh yes!
    
    Reply
  2. Ryan
    
    21/12/2011
    
    William, you and Pasty know (or should) that ‘Dave’ is a popular phrase quite widely used to refer to Cameron’s ‘couch sofa’ style Blairist governing style and his attempts to *present himself* as a man of the people rather than a privleged OE. Dare one say that calling a David ‘Dave’ is , in terms of rudeness, not exactly up there with demonising gay people, nor implying that someone who disagrees with an opinion *on* a theological matter is somehow ignorant *of* theology?
    
    Can you cite a ‘non’ revisionist expression of church that offers worship that would please the God of Jeremiah, William? Personally I think the sort of glorious Eucharists that St.Mary’s feature hit closer to the mark than either (say) Shine Jesus Shine style worship songs or the glum langours of (e.g.) ‘biblical’ presbyterianism, but YMMV….
    
    Also, given that this is the same David Cameron who appeared in gay mag Attitude suggesting that the C of E could take lead from the now (relatively) gay-friendly tory party and giving it the sackcloth-and-ashes in regard to Section 28, I do have to laugh at self-styled fundamentalists accusing beastly Kelvin of being so mean about Cameron’s in-no-way-largely-for-political-gain theological musings.
    
    Reply
william

21/12/2011

Ryan – have a happy christmas – William!

Reply
1. Ryan
  
  21/12/2011
  
  Ah, robust and scrupulous engagement with comments as always William! 😉
  
  And also, as they say, to you.
  
  Reply
Rosemary Hannah

22/12/2011

“It could be that blindness to all of this is because of the paucity of grace in their mindset; Pelagians donâ€™t feel the need for grace or atonement as much as the rest of us.
They seem to assume God is always smiling on them, and is always pleased with the worship they present to Him, whatever its content or assumptions. ”

This is not merely inaccurate but terrible theology.
1-Nobody is more scrupulous about worship than Kelvin. The content of Episcopal worship is (unlike that of denominations less heavily influenced by the Catholic tradition) carefully prescribed.
2 – Grace, in the Reformed sense is, in fact, a frequent theme of his sermons.
3 – The real trouble with Pelagians is that they assume they have to EARN the favour of God – and that he is not very likely to be induced to smile on them. It is Athanasians who believe that God comes to them, and despite their inability to get things right, smiles on them. You have reversed the two. Allow me to suggest that Kelvin’s theology, which as one who has listened to him and read him, I think I understand, is such that he knows he is beloved by God even if he sometimes gets things wrong. Whereas you write as though you think you have to get your theology and other assorted beliefs right to be loved by God. But it is not so. Even people who make the most astonishing mistakes God are still his children, loved and carried in his heart.

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  22/12/2011
  
  Right on all counts, Rosemary. There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. I’m already utterly loved. Morality, ethics, grace and love are all predicated on that love being entirely unwavering. There is nothing that I can do (even less believe) that would make God love me more.
  
  I would add that I have been to a place which claims to be the tomb of Athanasius.
  
  (It was a little smelly).
  
  Reply
  1. william
    
    22/12/2011
    
    How profound, and yet how gloriously true – “There is nothing I can do to make God love me more.”
    Thatâ€™s the whole biblical meta narrative – God does everything, even recreates us in the image of His Son by His Spirit – as Paul said, we are ‘new creation’.
    And our heavenly Father has done all this for us that He might have children bearing the family likeness – not that our obedience will make Him love us more.
    But disobedience to what He has spoken will surely lead to fatherly chastisement.
    So in that regard there is always more we can do, as opposed to “There is nothing that I can do”. Good fathers do not smile on their children’s disobedience, even though they do not love them less.
    Sadly Pelagius pursued and taught the route of meritorious good works to please the Father [and the heresy is still vigorously alive today] – he was blind enough to think he might even be able to do this.
    Augustinians pursue grace â€“ but increasingly their lives are being conformed to the likeness of Christ as Jesus said, by their fruits you will know them.
    Righteousness by faith is not a legal fiction!
    
    Reply
Rosemary Hannah

22/12/2011

There appears no way of liking Kelvin’s comment ‘oh yes,oh yes,’ but consider it very heavily liked.

Somebody tell william that getting me going on Jeremiah might not be wise. Oh, I know, tell him to read http://lovebloomsbright.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/with-justice-and-with-righteousness/

Reply
1. william
  
  22/12/2011
  
  Rosemary – I did read it and found it intensely moving.
  Probing the intensity of the Father’s yearnings over His ancient people is only matched [fulfilled is maybe a better word]by His Son’s brokenness for us at Gethsemane and beyond.
  Yet that’s the way – the only way – for us ever to have His smile upon us.
  Have you done a reading on Isaiah 5?
  
  Reply
  1. Rosemary Hannah
    
    22/12/2011
    
    That is very sweet of you william- and actually Is 5 is an excellent suggestion for one of my pieces.
    I would say that, essentially, the yearning of the father and the brokenness of the son are contiguous aspects of one phenomena.
    
    Reply
David Baker

29/12/2011

So we have a Prime Minister defending the Bible, and an Episcopalian provost attacking it?

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  29/12/2011
  
  No, David Baker.
  
  I love the Bible and delight in it.
  
  Reply