If you were as angry and disillusioned as were many of us with the Church of England Response to the Government Consultation on Same Sex Marriage please join this campaign by personally disowning the content of the Response.
Pick up a pen.
Write a plain card/ post card/ short note or email to your Diocesan Bishop/ One of the Archbishops / Your General Synod Representatives/ Anyone you know well who represent the “hierarchy of the C of E”
And say simply:
Dear …
NOT IN MY NAME
What on earth is happening to the Church of England , the Church to which I belong?
Why were amendments added to the draft legislation regarding women Bishops when 42 out of the 44 Dioceses had voted for the unamended proposals? Why was the careful work of so many years overturned in a few days? In whose name? These new amendments are NOT IN MY NAME
And who wrote the so called “Church of England” Government Equalities Office Consultation on Equal Civil Marriage Response? It is NOT IN MY NAME and I dissociate myself from the out of date, intolerant views contained therein. The Government at least consulted gay and lesbian people about their hopes for the future of their relationships , which is more than the Church of England ever does. In this the Government shows a democratic spirit which is the spirit of the times, but which seems to be lost altogether from the present Church of England hierarchy which appears to act as an increasingly clumsy, backward looking “Magisterium” in matters of the utmost human sensitivity and seriousness. In whose name does it act like this?
NOT IN MY NAME.
Signed
Yours in Christ
NameBaptised and Confirmed Member of the Church of England/ Regularly worshipping member of the Church of England
This task is not meant to be onerous but to register with the Bishops and other members of the hierarchy our distrust and anger over recent moves and statements made by them as if they carry the authority of the whole church.
If you are very busy just write one card or contact one Bishop.
If you are less busy please write to as many hierarchs as you can.
Put anything you like on the card but include the words NOT IN MY NAME so that they get the message. The more humorous and distinctive the card the better, without of course being rude, or simple plain little while card will do.
Please try to get friends/ members of your groups/ other congregation members to do the same.
Flood them………..we have to show we care!
See also the online petition Church of England? Not in our name
Thank you Inclusive Church for suggesting this and for helping us to respond easily to your call
This approach by Inclusive Church has integrity and I believe it is a very positive path ahead. I salute this approach. Not in my name, indeed. It appears the vast majority of the CofE have been double-crossed by a few bishops who are trying to ram their narrow views down the throats of the entire Church. This is going to backfire on the bishops and I can think of no greater form of expression than the “plan” put forward by Inclusive Church. Keep this topic in the spotlight. Do not let up. Transparency is essential and the whole world is… Read more »
Thank you for alerting me to this campaign. I have made sure to contact my diocese to let them know that the CoE response DOES speak for me. Rather than being angry and disillusioned, I am encouraged to see that there is hope that the Church of England will not spinelessly drift back and forth with the tides of political sentiment.
But Charles, this is a statement being made by the CofE and therefore has nothing to do with other Anglican provinces, the USA for example.
The truth is that there is no consensus within the Church of England about these issues of sexuality. To present such a one-sided statement grossly fails to represent the range of actual views and beliefs in the Church. Furthermore, in the recent rejection of the Covenant, the mind of the Church was seen to oppose the very uniformity on sexual matters that your statement attempts to present. It is unfair and dishonest to publish a statement so unrepresentative on an issue where everyone’s views should be equally and proportionately voiced. Dismayed but praying. God be with you, the Bishops, and… Read more »
Good to hear from you, Charles!
Are you another fan of the worship and life at St Aidan’s, Moose Jaw? Eric and Kate are lovely advocates for its gospel centred life and deep liturgical sensitivity.
I am sure you will be writing to the bishop of Saskatuan telling him how impressed you are at the CofE!
It’s good to know Briercrest has so many Anglicans on the staff!!
I thought that it was a rather good response from the CofE. Nearly as good as the Catholic one.
I would be more than surprised if the C of E statement did not speak for the majority of Church of England members, even practising homosexuals, who by a substantial number have already said that they do not wish to see marriage redefined. That is because of the recognition that civil partnerships already provide the legal securities originally at the root of their concerns. To tamper with the institution of marriage in the way the revisionists suggest must be resisted wholeheartedly. So hats off to the C of E on this occasion for actually taken a stance on an issue.… Read more »
Anyone read the UK Methodist response to the consultation. It is much more honest and far better written. Not seen any other churches but one outcome might be we could come to an arrangement whereby we disestablish the CofE and replace it with another denomination as the established church in England… might work.
Wonderful news, Charles. Me too! Hooray for a church that does not undermine the primacy of biological kinship in marriage with claims that non-biological relationships are equivalent. The next target is to make ‘social parenthood’ equal to biological parenthood, so that the partner who is not the biological parent can claim (and contest) the rights of a biological parent. The ILGA makes this a clear objective of its contribution to the European Commission’s Green Paper consultation. So the effect would be that, if a closeted gay, comes out, divorces his wife and then marries a same-sex partner, he and his… Read more »
“But Charles, this is a statement being made by the CofE and therefore has nothing to do with other Anglican provinces, the USA for example.” – Alastair Newman – But Alastair, for those of us in other Provinces of the world-wide Anglican Communion, our Churches are inevitably affected by what is happening in the Church of England (which some of us still regard as our Foundation Church – despite the fact that we see Her lagging behind on some issues of common justice, such as this). Most Anglicans are looking on with dismay at the way in which the Church… Read more »
Our Fathers in God are being absolutely vilified – it makes me wonder why any woman would wish to join those who are currently being portrayed as such rogues and vagabonds?
Father David, contrarily to your last supposition; it may just be that Women are required to provide the right and just balance in the House of bishops in the Church of England – as they have in other Provinces of the Communion.
Patriarchalism is not a particularly ‘Christian’ virtue. Jesus did much to overturn its influence in Israel – or as much as he was able in the time and circumstances of that era and ethos.
“it makes me wonder why any woman would wish to join those who are currently being portrayed as such rogues and vagabonds?”
Or indeed any man…
“Our Fathers in God are being absolutely vilified …” “rogues and vagabonds”
Did I miss something?
I thought we were all wondering who wrote this piece – or at least which group oversaw it and who contributed.
Those who are agreeing w/ the “Church of England Statement” are rather missing the point: they don’t HAVE to state their agreement, because the (presumably) archbishops have done that for them.
It’s those who DISAGREE who have been put in the position of NEEDING to speak out, “Not in My Name.”
[@ DavidS: yes, you’re engaging in “ruthless scaremongering” (and I read your link).]
Martin, St. Aidan’s Moose Jaw is in the Diocese of Qu’Appelle, not the Diocese of Saskatchewan or the Diocese of Saskatoon (I’m not sure which you were trying to spell).
Here’s me labouring under the misapprehension that it’s the ministry of the bishops to lead the Church. When they do so with regard to their two now infamous amendements and their response to the Government’s consultation on same sex marriage – I can’t recall many bouquets being offered but I’ve lost count of the number of brickbats that have fallen upon their heads.
JCF:
‘and I read your link’.
Well done and more than enough, once you don’t need to prove the scaremongering assertion.
I don’t think I can spell any of them, Malcolm ….
but I did think it was in Saskatchewan.
I had put that comment aside for checking just that thing …… but others descended on my computer and I thought it gone – not sent!
Still, I hope Charles knows and writes to the right one!
Perhaps I’m not the only one on this site, David Shepherd, who does not read your links. I understand quite enough of your position from your voluminous posts on these threads. I’m retired, but I still could not catch up to you in contributions. I have to admire your persistence, if not your theology.
However, the Anglican genius contains us both. and that is why we need to keep up the debate. Agape.
“Hooray for a church that does not undermine the primacy of biological kinship in marriage with claims that non-biological relationships are equivalent.” Talk about discriminatory bullpoop. Though coming from the direction of those who routinely equate any non-heterosexual act with bestiality and pedophilia, shouldn’t be that surprising.
Anyone else find the “biological kinship” fetish that has begun to surface in recent days grotesquely creepy? Not to mention grossly offensive to anyone in a adoptive relationship with another.
Roger:
Anyone seeking an adoptive relationship needs the consent of the biological parent, or a court order. That proves the primacy of biological kinship.
If you’re not talking bullpoop, show me where adopting couples don’t require such consent.
Beginning to suspect that this is a private obsession of your own rather than a theological issue held by many others, David. Am I correct?
Agape, Ron. Long may the Anglican dialectic continue!
“or a court order”
This has nothing to do with kinship.
When the children were minors we had the same duties as natural parents to appoint a guardian for them in our will. That has everything to do with the kinship that had been established by law and love and if we had died this expressing of trust would have made another family – created new kin – and without any court intervention or any biology.
Martin, Really simple to Google ‘adoption order’: http://www.adoption.org.uk/information/step_parent/court_guidance.pdf Page 6: ‘If the child’s birth parents or guardian have not consented to the adoption and you are asking the court to dispense with their consent, the court will need to be satisfied that: • the parent or guardian cannot be found, or is incapable of giving consent, or, • the welfare of the child requires that their consent be dispensed with.’ So, unless the birth parents are absent, or abdicate their responsibility in a manner that threatens the child welfare, an adoption order requires the consent of biological parents. That proves… Read more »
‘Twould be better if people wrote their own words rather than adopting a formulaic response. Identikit responses don’t have the same punch …
Martin,
Your first comment seemed brusque, but the latter was very sensitively and personally expressed.
Sorry, if my asynchronous response seemed a harsh retort. It wasn’t meant that way.
Martin, Moose Jaw is in the civil province of Saskatchewan, but the civil province is divided into three dioceses. The Bishop of Qu’Appelle has just been elected to the Diocese of Calgary and, pending the consent of the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert’s Land, will be departing the fix around or about the end of the summer.
We *wouldn’t* need to worry about CofE’s position if we stopped playing their mini-Rome game. Divorce ourselves from them COMPLETELY, and we can make it clear in TEC that they don’t speak for us. As for the idea that “practicing homosexuals” (that vile term which, apparently, doesn’t qualify as offensive to the mediators of TA) would give overwhelming approval to CofE’s egregious statement of prejudice – how would you know? Silence isn’t approval. Most I’ve heard from have simply given up on the idea that the CofE can, as a whole, represent Christ or that there is any hope to… Read more »
I still don’t understand how this weird concept of biological kinship rights is affected differently by straight adoption and by gay adoption. But that’s not even relevant, because this conversation seems to assume that it is gay marriage that will bring about gay adoption. Whereas in fact, gay people can and do already adopt, foster and have their own children. So far, the biological kinship world does not have appeared to have fallen in. I do wonder what changing civil partnerships to marriages will change in that respect. If I converted my civil partnership into a marriage, my children would… Read more »
Interesting that liberal Christianity is completely in tune with the status quo. It now seems that Orthodox Christians are the radicals of our time.
What difference? Ask Ms.Gas and Ms.Dubois, who found out that civil partners couldn’t share parental rights over Ms. Gas’s IVF child. Scary? No, just ‘blue skies’ thinking until one partner dies and the biological father tries to regain custody from the surviving partner. (Assuming that they were not conceived through an anonymous male donor) Especially, if he hadn’t consented to relinquish those ‘weird biological kinship rights’? What if the surviving partner did not succeed in adopting them? Who is the automatic next of kin, making education and healthcare decisions on your children’s behalf? Under educational law, a parent is considered… Read more »
“liberal Christianity is completely in tune with the status quo …”
But I am constantly being reminded that only a tiny proportion of Anglicans and an even tinier proportion of Christians support women as priests etc or gay equality. Last time I checked women still suffered huge discrimination worldwide in status, legal rights and representation, and there were far more countries executing gay people than offering them equality before the law.
“No, just ‘blue skies’ thinking until one partner dies and the biological father tries to regain custody from the surviving partner.” But the biology is absolutely no different if Mrs Married and Mr Married use IVF and sperm from a known donor and then Mr Married dies and the donor wants to claim parental rights. Or if Mrs Married and Mr Married use a donor egg and then Mrs Married dies and the egg donor wants to claim parental rights. Biologically, this is absolute nonsense. In any infertile relationship you have one partner who may be the biological parent of… Read more »
Instead of theory, look at the ‘real world’ judgement from the ECHR supporting the French authorities in the case brought by Ms. Gas.
Tell me why Ms. Gas would have been in a very different position had she been married?
Tell me why the ECHR’s understanding of human rights allowed the State to confer upon a spouse the right to share, rather than relinquish parental rights to a spouse who isn’t biologically related to their child, but disallowed a civil partner from doing the same? Why?
BTW, Ms. Gas and Ms. Dubois are both fertile women.
No, not nonsense.
David, I have now read the summary judgement, and interestingly, it states: ” Simple adoption enables a second legal parent-child relationship to be established in addition to the original parent-child relationship based on blood ties (as opposed to full adoption, where the new legal relationship replaces the original one). 3 Article 365 of the Civil Code governs the transfer of parental responsibility in the event of simple adoption. Parental responsibility is transferred to the adoptive parent; ****the biological parent or parents thus cease to exercise parental responsibility, except where the adoptee is the child of the husband or wife, in… Read more »
Earlier you questioned in relation to adoption: ‘I do wonder what changing civil partnerships to marriages will change in that respect.’ Now you say, again in relation to adoption: ‘Which only goes to prove our point that there is no full legal equality between marriage and civil partnership.’ So why question, in respect of adoption, what difference exists and then claim that you’ve insisted there was no equality betwen them all along? Another clear contradiction, or rhetoric? Try to argue consistently. You’ve avoided the ECHR’s validation of the French authority’s position by claiming the difference is an anomaly.that needs to… Read more »
It’s true, I had honestly thought that gay people could adopt on the same legal basis as straight people, because that’s what everyone keeps telling me, that there is no legal difference between civil marriage and civil partnership. It may even be that this is true in Britain and that this case would not have been brought here. I don’t know the laws well enough – maybe someone here who has adopted or tried to adopt in similar circumstances can clarify? The ECHR rightly stated that there was no discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, because the difference (not… Read more »
‘Rather than claim as universal truth that there “is no right” for homosexuals to marry, which is patent nonsense, as gay people do have precisely that legal right in a growing number of countries’. But that was not my position which I qualified to relate to the ECHR, so I repeat, it’s not nonsense. As far as the ECHR is concerned, a right (e.g the right to marry) imposes a legal duty on a member state to legislate for it. The ECHR is declaring that, within the margin of appreciation, member states are under no legal duty to legislate for… Read more »
‘As we have shown conclusively, this is not based on any actual biology but on some artificial definition of biological kinship that owes more to the law than it does to an understanding of genetics.’ No, that’s false. Kinship has its basis in the genetic realities of conceiving and building a new generation. The legal framework has developed to prioritise the shared legal rights of a couple sharing in the genetic make-up of their offspring. Building a family as biological outcome of sexual union existed before the law began to codify parental rights and responsibilities. That biological outcome of sexual… Read more »
“The legal framework has developed to prioritise the shared legal rights of a couple sharing in the genetic make-up of their offspring.” Yes, and with the advent of IVF and other donor arrangements, the legal framework has effortlessly been adapted to encompass the reality of infertility and of a family in which the child is the genetic offspring of only one of the parents. That’s the thing about the law – it can be effortlessly adapted to adjust to new realities without compromising the purpose of the original legislation. “If challenged, any legislative disparity between religious and civil marriage on… Read more »
“As the ILGA document shows, the liberal hope is that access to the institution of marriage will open the way for civil partners to ensure their rights over each other’s children are prioritised automatically by law. A presumption of parental authority without any biological kinship between each other or to the partner’s child. That’s when the primacy of biological kinship rights is undermined.” And why shouldn’t it be in such cases? If the child has been raised by someone other than the biological parent or parents…if the child has only known the adoptive parents as parents…isn’t it in the best… Read more »
Pat, this is particularly the case in the ECHR case David keeps citing in evidence for the importance of biological kinship: the donor, whose biological rights were considered to be more important, is anonymous and lives in a different country! How keeping that link going is supposed to be in the best interest of the child is a complete mystery to me, and the only rational explanation is that it;s a deficiency in the civil partnership law that did not foresee this issue and legislate for it. “The applicants are French nationals who were born in 1961 and 1965 respectively… Read more »
As usual I do not follow David Shepherd’s arguments or reasoning.
The decision relating to France is seen as further proof of the need for gay marriage.
The common practice among lesbians is for the egg of one partner to be fertilised and then planted in the womb of the other. I am not sure how David Shepherd would understand the “biological kinship” this establishes – I just see some very happy families!
Erika: All of the legal adaptations that you mention are subordinate to genetic parental rights. Donors and genetic parents have to sign consent forms relinquishing their rights. These proposals are not an adaptation of existing law, since they supplant the primacy of those rights. The very idea that someone without any genetic connection could use marriage to override access to my offspring is morally repugnant. I doubt that you would want your parental rights overridden by anyone, especially without consent. Yet, you claim that biological kinship should not maintain the primacy that it is accorded through the institution of marriage.… Read more »
Martin: ‘I am not sure how David Shepherd would understand the “biological kinship” this establishes – I just see some very happy families!’ Consider that the common practice that you’ve mentioned has given rise to a recent Florida custody battle in which the birth mother claimed that, by recognising the parental rights of the biological mother whom she divorced, the district court would give rise to ‘a unique and unsupportable legal fiction that a child may have two mothers (and by implication) two fathers’. The trial judge ruled in favour of the birth mother because the procedure of egg donation… Read more »
“The very idea that someone without any genetic connection could use marriage to override access to my offspring is morally repugnant. I doubt that you would want your parental rights overridden by anyone, especially without consent.” Well, then you’d better not become an anonymous sperm donor. Because if the women you donated to subsequently got married the law would already allow her husband to adopt the child. This is not new. This is the whole point of *anonymous* sperm donation. “There can be no difference in interpreting the disqualification in clause 11(c): ‘that the parties are not respectively male and… Read more »