Judith Maltby writes in the Guardian today (in the Face to faith column) that Churches should celebrate bringing God into civil partnership ceremonies.
…Some leaders in my own church, the Church of England, as well as the Roman Catholic church have described this as an assault on religious liberty – and no doubt there is an aggressive secularist agenda to embarrass the churches, though aggressive secularists should note that we are pretty good at doing that ourselves without their help. Indeed, the religious liberty defence has a patronising and hollow ring to it when Quakers and Reform Jews are asking precisely for the liberty to register and bless civil partnerships in their own places of worship. They do not need Anglican or Roman Catholic bishops to “save them from themselves” – especially since both our churches have a shameful history of persecuting these very same faith groups.
So why does the liberty to introduce God into civil partnership ceremonies devalue marriage? It would appear that there just isn’t enough of God to go around. One cannot, apparently, honour and bless one pattern of living a faithful and committed life, without somehow devaluing another. It is the theological equivalent of printing too much money…
Some other opinions that we failed to report earlier:
LGCM LGCM welcomes another step towards full marriage equality
Peter Tatchell Religious civil partnerships welcome, no progress on gay marriage
Quakers Quakers welcome government move on civil partnerships
Cutting Edge Consortium Cutting Edge Consortium asks Government to press ahead with Marriage Review
Thank God for the common sense response of Judith Maltby. It is the perspicacity of such women members of the Church that will bring our Anglican Communion around to the undertstanding of the Gospel as ‘Good News’ for ALL people – regardless of gender, race, or sexual-orientation. How dare we call evil that which God has created in the Divine Image and Likeness?