David Pocklington has written a very detailed article about the Ministry of Justice consultation which is currently in progress.
The documents are all linked in his first paragraph:
On 3 October, the Ministry of Justice published the Consultation Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 Shared Buildings Regulations, which closes in less than a month on 1 November 2013. In addition to the Consultation, the MoJ has published Draft Regulations (as Annex A) and Revised provisions of the Marriage Act 1949 for Registration of Shared Buildings for marriages of same sex couples (as Annex B). The Consultation is in the form of an on-line survey, although the 9 questions and associated descriptive material are contained in the consultation document at pages 12 to 20.
The full text of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 can be found here in PDF format.
“religious organization may fear that this constitutes a “salami slicing” exercise to further reduce their religious freedom”
In contrast to this fear-controlled attitude, on this side of the Pond—
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/marriage_equality/i_give_thanks_that_samesex_mar.html
I appreciate JCF’s comment that Same-Sex Marriages will now be able to be performed in the U.S. State of New Jersey. Good, also, that a TEC Bishop is willing to provide leadership on this issue. TEC has already allowed for Same-sex Partnership Blessings. In the circumstances, what is actually being done is to bless same-sex relationships – whatever one is disposed to call them, and to offer God’s Blessing for a life-long monogamous relationship of two people ‘who love one another, and wish to spend the rest of their lives together’ – surely this need to be encouraged, rather than… Read more »
As an American (and not only) I too appreciate JCF’s reference and what the Bishop of NJ says, and see that as quite a contrast to RW’s comments to the TAB on another thread in TA. I have been thinking a lot about Blessing-Wounding (blesser as the French say)- in Zurich we use the related readings of a Sunday and so today was Jacob wrestling with God (as he himself puts it) and getting blessed and also wounded. I think what a blot and festering wound slavery and its aftermath have been to USA. Segregation by skin color lasted well… Read more »
TEC is much more inclusive and has actually been open to the issues as part of its own journey. TEC is showing the CofE and also the wider Anglican Communion as well, possibly, as Christianity outside the Anglican Communion that you don’t need to fear the gays.
Craig’s formulation – ‘you don’t need to fear the gays’ – seems to me spot on. Whatever one thinks of the term ‘homophobe’, it is an important insight that ‘conservative’ Christian attitudes to gay people are strongly motivated by fear: because the very occurrence of gayness challenges their notion that everything is perfectly ordered in a perfect universe scrupulously designed in detail by God. In reality, gayness is just something that occurs and is morally neutral. So it’s equally erroneous to say: ‘God created gays’. However, to argue these things is immensely difficult because people’s most fundamental notions about ‘the… Read more »