The Equality Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords yesterday. Reports of the debate are online at They Work for You and Lords Hansard. The amendments to clause 202 (amendments 4 and 5 in the debate) that we detailed earlier were carried. The bill now returns to the House of Commons for consideration of these and all the other Lords amendments.
Martin Beckford writes in the Telegraph Government insists vicars will not be sued for refusing ‘gay marriages’ in churches.
Simon Caldwell and Martin Beckford also wrote in the Telegraph before the Lords third reading debate that Equality Bill could be amended by Lords to benefit Catholic adoption agencies but the amendment referred to (number 7 in the debate) was not moved.
Another silly letter in the Times today from Lord Carey, in which he repeats the exact same canard that Lord Alli carefully refuted for the Telegraph on 7 March.
Lord Carey’s letter at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7072873.ece
Lord Alli’s piece at http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/004276.html
badman, is this the same Carey under whose leadership the CoE hemorrhaged membership?
Not for the first time one wishes Lord Carey would take himself somewhere far from the media – Pitcairn Island comes to mind – and shut the hell up.
One might wonder whether there is a concerted campaign to deliberately mis-represent what Lord Ali’s amendments actually mean. And how some people can represent this as aanother attack on religious freedom when in fact it liberalises the law for those who want to take advantage of its provisions, is beyond me.
“In response to the concerns, new amendments were voted through on Tuesday which made it clear consent must be given for religious premises being used for the ceremonies. This could allow national churches to veto the desire of liberal clergy to host the events.” – Martin Beckford, Telegraph – This will be the real testing point for the Church of England – on whether or not they will allow their churches and clergy to add God’s Blessing to the committed monogamous relationship of legal, faithful, same-sex partnerships in Church. Contrary to +Winchester, and others within the Church who are fearful… Read more »
The Religious freedom issue gets complicated. Because religions organise themselves in such a variety of ways any law can easily have unintended consequences. Its not hard to see that a law or set of regulations may advantage one part of a religious group over another.
An example of this where the TEC through its Dennis canon asserts its right to hold property communally. State law in Virginia allows individual congregations to leave with property. TEC argues this abrogates its religious freedom to organise hierachially.
What strange ‘bed-fellows’ – My Lords of Winchester and Clifton! What is it about the desire of Christians to be able to celebrate their faithful life-partnerships with a Blessing from God in their places of worship that so antagonizes these noble lords? Even if they – as Anglican prelates – have no regard for same-sex relationships, they must surely accept that there are other religious bodies that believe in celebrating them. If both Clifton and Winchester believe in the concept of heterosexual divorce and remarriage, then their discrimination against faithful same-sex relationships can hardly be based on sexual mores. The… Read more »
“One might wonder whether there is a concerted campaign to deliberately mis-represent what Lord Ali’s amendments actually mean. And how some people can represent this as aanother attack on religious freedom when in fact it liberalises the law for those who want to take advantage of its provisions, is beyond me.” Ah well – sounds like your reactionaries are taking a page from our tea-baggers, who have managed to convince many people that the health care bill will set up death panels, provide free unlimited abortions, give insurance to illegal aliens etc etc etc. Now someof those who voted for… Read more »