What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Husbands and Wifes

    flag over castro

    Yesterday I heard the news that the House of Lords has given a third reading to the new legislation which will allow gay couples to get married in England and Wales. It should get the nod from the House of Commons today and then go to the Queen for Royal Assent by the end of the week. The first marriages under this legislation will take place sometime next year once registrars have been re-trained and new forms printed.

    I expect we will have a period where all kinds of other institutions will have to re-write their forms and policies too. One can imagine married same-sex couples getting grumpy when they try to fill in an insurance form or try to join a social network and they are offered wife or husband when they want to be offered a box to tick for the opposite.

    It is only fairly recently that I’ve heard same-sex couples who were married speaking freely of their husband or wife. We have one same-sex couple connected to St Mary’s who are married, having been hitched in South Africa. When I was in Canada and the USA I was hearing the use of husband by some married gay men and wife by some of the lesbian couples I met. It was by no means universal but it was becoming common and rather ordinary though no doubt that takes a little time.

    Part of me remembers that I once was against same-sex marriage and that it was partly because I thought that gender-neutrality had something to offer. Were gay couples not leading the world by insisting on having partners rather than the somewhat possessive alternative nouns?

    I think I was wrong about that. What was needed was equality and some people need to use just such possessive language to describe their relationships in the same way that straight married couples sometimes reject it and use the partner language.

    Inevitably there is now going to be a period of reflection and consultation whilst the government tries to decide whether to open Civil Partnership up to straight couples. I expect that will happen though I’m not that keen. It seems to me that the right way forward was simply to incorporate Civil Partnership with Civil Marriage. However, I suspect that though I’ve been on the winning side of most arguments about changes in marriage law, that is not one that I’m likely to win now.

    Very many churches have proclaimed themselves to be against same-sex marriage as it will somehow undermine and threaten the institution of marriage itself.

    I don’t think that is true. I do think that retaining Civil Partnership and opening it up to straight couples does undermine the institution of marriage though. Had the churches engaged in these arguments in more constructive ways than most of them did then they might have had an influence which strengthened marriage. Instead, I suspect that in the long term they will have weakened it.

    Still, we’ll not worry about that today. We will simply fly a rainbow flag in celebration for all those soon to be married couples in England and Wales. And recognise that the last battles still have to be won in Scotland.

    Alleluia for England!

    And once more unto the breach.

    , , ,

7 responses to “Ask! Tell!”

  1. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    Count me in as a straight supporter of gay people, clergy or lay. But count me in, too, as one who respects people’s right to privacy. As a hetersexual male, I would not expect to be asked about my sexuality, or to be pressurised into being explicit about it, had I chosen to remain unmarried.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think that issues of privacy are a long way away from issues of whether one’s life should suffer for chosing to be open.

    Both important issues but they are very different issues one from another.

    Reply
  3. Steven Avatar
    Steven

    I am about to “out” myself as a straight supporter of gay clergy in the Church of Ireland by getting a letter published in my local paper!

    It is one thing to have a personal (private) opinion and whole different thing to go public with that view. Feels quite liberating actually!

    I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Church…

    I suppose it is the natural result of the way my thinking has been developing over some time, especially by engagement with liberal/progressive anglican thought and seeing that there IS another way to be Christian (as opposed to the dominant conservative evangelical ethos that prevails in my part of Ireland).

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Good for you, Steven.

      My guess is that the repercussions of the Very Rev Tom Gordon and his partner coming out about their partnership are shining little rays of light all over the Church of Ireland at the moment, occassionally illuminating things which some would prefer to be kept in darkness.

      > I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Church…

      Don’t be surprised – so was I. So were most of the people I know who now advocate on behalf of progressive causes in the church. One of the things that is happening at the moment is that the really hard line anti-gay voices are being undermined by the people they thought they could rely on. It makes loud, cross voices crosser and louder. The sound of those shrill voices is the sound of people who are being squeezed from every direction.

      Reply
  4. william Avatar
    william

    What’s in Kelvin’s Head?
    Confusion? Compassion?
    Wisdom? Folly?
    Light?Darkness?[in the Johannine sense]
    Humility? Arrogance?
    Obedience?Disobedience?
    Hopefully there’s a “next bishop” somewhere near!!

    Reply
  5. Steven Avatar
    Steven

    I agree with you. One of the points I make in the letter to the Portadown Times (the original clergy statement was published in that paper on 16th Sept – see Thinking Anglicans) is that it seems that evangelical clergy in Ireland were happy with a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and it is the publicity that is causing the problem now – after all it must have been well known that Tom Gordon was living with his partner over the last 20 years!

    It is also ironic that three of the signatories of the clergy statement were women – i.e., those previously ordained following the development of a generous and inclusive theology of Christian leadership (in spite of Saint Paul’s issues). They now seek to use their authority to prevent others from benefiting from the very development that they benefited from…

    The only issue, I suppose, is that this development did take the Church of Ireland by surprise and the silence from the Bishops has been unhelpful.

    I would be interested to know your views on the tension between acting innovatively (perhaps, unilaterally) and the need to respect the whole body of Christ etc…

    The situation in TEC in respect of the ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop, by contrast, involved an open and transparent development that went through the standard procedures of the Church. I know that in this case the issue is in respect of a civil partnership – which it was Dean Gordon’s “right” to enter under the law of the RoI but the significance of this move for the wider Church of Ireland would not have been lost in either himself or his Bishop.

    I still think he did the right thing but I am sympathetic to the criticism that these issues should not, in general, be dealt with an ad hoc manner… Although in fairness to Dean Gordon I am not sure if the debate would have ever got on the table if he had not acted as he has done.

    Reply
  6. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think that there is a difference between electing a bishop and who a person choses to make a committment to.

    One is very clearly a public office that needs the consent of the people. The other falls within someone’s personal life.

    I wouldn’t say that is irrelevant and nor would I be so stupid as the recent Church of Scotland statement that said of a Church of Scotland minister entering a Civil Partnership that it was entirely a personal matter. It very clearly isn’t.

    However, I would say that it requires a very different level of consent to being a bishop.

    Clergy living arrangements get complicated very much more quickly than those of other people because very often they are living in housing provided by the congregation. That, if anywhere is where issues of public consent come in.

    Generally speaking, I think that the provision of housing infantilises the clergy and is undesirable.

    Once civil partnerships were introduced, people had the choice of either liking them or lumping them really. Clergy entering into them were an inevitable consequence of their existence.

    Most people I know think that the demands of the Church of England that clergy in civil partnerships promise to be celibate demonstrate a quite disgusting pruriance on the part of bishops making such demands.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

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

Previous Posts

  • Primus

    The Scottish Episcopal Church has no Primus – long live the Primus.Pay attention now. Bishop Bruce resigned as Primus at the end of April, so he is no longer the Primus but still the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney. The election of the next primus takes place at the next meeting of the College of…

  • Whoosh – into the skip

    Anyone who thought that I could not fill a skip with junk was very much mistaken. Whoosh – so much has been thrown out this week and mostly it feels very good to be rid of it.Now, with the skip filling up and confronted by 2 record playing turntables and a pile of old LPs…

  • Sing along now

    Where have all the dog collars gonelong time passing?Where have all the collars gonelong time ago?Where have all the collars gone?Down the back of the fridge every one.When will he ever learn?When will he ever learn?

  • Auctioneer's Visit

    Today’s excitement/trauma was a visit from the auctioneers in Falkirk who took very many goods and chattels away to be sold.Anyone wanting to buy the Kelvin Holdsworth Memorial Table and Chairs (at which he ate his daily porridge in Bridge of Allan) needs to make their way to the auction rooms in Falkirk next Wednesday.I’ve…