The Government Equalities Office has published a policy paper which sets out the terms of reference and timetable for a review of the operation and future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA) in England and Wales.
See this announcement dated 13 June: Future of Civil Partnerships review to start in autumn 2013
3 CommentsTerms of Reference published for a formal review of the Civil Partnership Act 2004
The Government has today announced its intention to launch a full public consultation in the autumn to kick start a review of the future of Civil Partnerships in England and Wales.
During a debate in the House of Commons of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, concerns were raised by MPs over the issue of civil partnerships and their role in light of same sex marriage legislation.
To ensure these issues are fully understood the Government tabled an amendment to the Bill which would allow for a formal review of the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
Read the Terms of Reference for a formal review of the Civil Partnership Act. [Full text copied below the fold]
TA readers may recall that back in June 2011, a document was published by the Church of England, which was numbered GS Misc 992 entitled Choosing Bishops – The Equality Act 2010. We reproduced the full text of this document here at the time and it attracted some comment then.
In fact the identical document had been leaked to the Guardian newspaper the previous month when it attracted quite a lot of media comment.
Today, the Church of England released a new document, numbered GS Misc 1044, which is described as an update to the earlier one, but whose content is in some respects quite different. The cover note observes that the update has been made to take account of the decision taken by the House of Bishops in December in relation to civil partnerships and the episcopate.
We reported on that in House of Bishops decisions taken in December, and then again here, and finally, when in January the Church of England eventually issued a press release, in Civil partnerships and eligibility for the episcopate in the CofE.
The new document is now reproduced in full here.
The old document is still available here, and readers may find it instructive to look at the two side by side.
PDF originals are here (old), and then here (new).
John Bingham has written today in the Telegraph about this document, see Archbishops to ask clergy: ‘Are you having gay sex?’
Update Friday 21 June
Today, Gavin Drake reports on this for the Church Times in Assurances of celibacy may not be enough to qualify for a bishopric.
Updated Friday morning
Three days have now been allocated for the committee stage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, Monday 17th, Wednesday 19th, and Monday 24th June.
So far, three pages of amendments have been tabled, all can be reached via this page.
Update a Marshalled List is now available here. Several amendments include bishops as sponsors.
Update
David Pocklington at Law & Religion UK has an informative post: Same-Sex Marriage Bill – some legal issues.
Conservative Christian opposition to the bill continues, see The House of Lords, Church of England Bishops and the Same-Sex Couples bill by Chris Sugden at Anglican Mainstream.
The statement by the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual was reported here.
The Church of England Briefing Note issued for the Second Reading of the bill can be found here. It indicates the type of amendments that may be pursued by the bishops.
33 CommentsSome speeches in the Lords debate from peers who are not bishops also make instructive reading. Here are a few of them.
…Finally, I return to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I hope that he will not feel it is unfair if I call him my “old friend”, as indeed he is. I have come to the firm conclusion that there is nothing to fear in gay marriage and that, indeed, it will be a positive good not just for same-gender unions but for the institution of marriage generally. The effect will be to put right at the centre of marriage the concept of a stable, loving relationship. As a practising Christian, perhaps I may make the point to the Bishops’ Benches, including to the most reverend Primate, that there is every reason why, in time, the Anglican Church should come to accept that, although I recognise that it may take some time. The character of love which marriage reflects—that it is faithful, stable, tough, unselfish and unconditional—is the same character that most Christians see in the love of God. Marriage is therefore holy, not because it is ordained by God, but because it reflects that most important central truth of our religion: the love of God for all of us.
My Lords, I am a passionate supporter of the Bill. I support it because I believe in the institution of marriage, which is the bedrock of society and should be open to all. I support it because I believe in the values of the family, and the Bill will, in my view, strengthen them. I support it because I am a Conservative. Respect for individual liberty is at the core of my being and this is a Bill that will add to the sum of human freedom. I support it because I am a Christian and I believe we are all equal in the eyes of God, and should be so under man’s laws. I support it because I am one of those people who I fear were rather glibly derided by the noble Lord, Lord Dear, as being part of a tiny minority and, I think, were praised by my noble friend Lady Knight as being delightful, in that I am gay. I am in a civil partnership with somebody with whom I have been together for nearly a quarter of a century. I love him very much and nothing would give me greater pride than to marry him. I hope noble Lords will forgive that personal pronouncement, but it seems to me that my experience goes to the heart of this debate…
Lord Blair of Boughton (formerly Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police)
11 Comments…It is rather odd that I am speaking between the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. Nearly 50 years ago, I sat in a room in Chester Cathedral taking my common entrance exam in order to go to Wrekin College, where the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was a teacher. We are in a different country to that of 1965. No Member of your Lordships’ House could then have made the speeches that we have heard today about being gay. When I took that exam, abortion was illegal, capital punishment was on the statute books, homosexual acts in private were matters for criminal law, and there was no race relations legislation whatever. We are in a much better country, and the tide of history is running in only one direction.
The Bill represents a great and noble cause—what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, described as a moral cause. I suggest that, for a non-elected House to object to the Bill in this way, particularly after the events of this last weekend, would damage the reputation of this House.
My last point relates to the quadruple lock. I received many letters—as did all noble Lords—one of which I have one in my hand. It is from a young Christian gay man and it is in ink, so I cannot imagine that he sent it to 850 people, though some other noble Lords may have had it. In it he wrote that he was unable to reconcile his Christianity with his sexuality, and the fact that the Bill was being considered at all was helping him combine those two facets.
St Paul wrote to the Galatians that in Jesus Christ there is neither male or female, gentile or Jew, slave or free. I do not think that that was a coded message that everybody was okay except gays. It was an inclusive statement. As a member of the Anglican world, I hope that one day, before I die, I will see the Anglican Church unlock that quadruple lock from the inside…
The Dean of Durham wrote on The Bishops and Same-Sex Marriage
…As to what the bishops say about marriage, I agree that the proposals are not nearly strong enough on marriage as a covenanted relationship of fidelity. In this respect, the Archbishop is right: same-sex and other-sex marriages would not be entirely equal. But for this reason, I don’t think it is correct to speak about the measure as ‘redefining’ of marriage. The public covenant between two people who love and wish to belong to each other can and should be precisely the same in both. It’s no more a redefining of marriage than the remarriage of divorced people. In some ways, that is the more radical step to take because it entails considering in what way a covenant that has been broken for whatever reason could be entered into a subsequent time with another partner. So if the church is (largely) content to bless and even solemnise such marriages, this next step of making the institution more inclusive should not necessarily pose new difficulties. To enlarge the scope of an institution is not the same as changing its essential meaning.
There is something worryingly familiar about the bishops’ statement however. It is too often the case that the church is on the back foot, at first resisting social change that is wanted by the majority, then coming round to it slowly and grudgingly. This was precisely the case when artificial contraception was being debated in the early 20th century. Lambeth Conferences were root and branch opposed to the idea that sex could be for recreation as well as procreation. It would have been better to adopt the Gamaliel position of saying ‘let us wait and see whether this might be of God’. Much the same can be said about women as priests and bishops in the church.
If you scroll down my blogs on this Woolgathering site, you’ll find my piece on Gamaliel and equal marriage. It’s clearer now than then which way history is moving. It’s not too late for the Church of England to be on the right side of it this time. Without grudge.
Michael Portillo is reported to have said this on a television programme:
“I think it is a good moment to reflect on the fact that whilst this has been presented as an issue that has caused enormous problems for David Cameron and splits within the Conservative Party – actually the problems are really with the Church of England and indeed with the Catholic Church.
“[They] just do not know how to deal with the issue of homosexuality and gay priests and gay bishops and so on. And that is where the division is and the churches are haemorrhaging membership like water disappearing from a bath and they don’t have any way of dealing with this problem.”
Savi Hensman wrote at Ekklesia Church of England’s stance on marriage and sexuality still unclear
Some people may be understandably confused about the Church of England’s position on same-sex partnerships and equal marriage. Official statements, the publicly-voiced views of senior clergy and broader opinions among church members point in different directions. Part of this is to do with realism, but shifts in understanding also play a part.
At the beginning of the week of a House of Lords debate on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, proposing marriage equality in England and Wales, it might have seemed that the ‘party line’ was clear. Policy and study documents suggest that, while lay Anglicans may conscientiously believe that physically intimate same-sex partnerships can be right, they are in fact wrong, and lifelong celibacy is preferable for those attracted mainly to the same sex.
Issues in human sexuality, a statement by the House of Bishops in 1991, took this line, and urged that clergy abstain from sexual relationships with members of the same sex, though hostility to lesbians and gays was deplorable and intrusive questioning about private lives was discouraged…
Gerry Lynch wrote A Farewell Discourse: The Hard Truths That Set Us Free
4 Comments…I’ll briefly review the Church of England’s record on LGBT issues, and then I’ll review Justin’s record, which is typical of most Evangelical clergy and pretty much every Evangelical bishop of his generation. I could write an equally critical article about Liberal Catholic bishops, but it would be involve different criticism and, let’s be honest, that’s not who has been driving the agenda on sexuality issues in the Church of England for a long time.
This is, unfair as it may seem, the sum total what you have managed to communicate to LGBTs over the past two decades. It may not be what you wanted to communicate, but it’s what you did.
Over the past 15 years, there has been a revolution in how same-sex relationships have been treated in law in the United Kingdom, as in most Western societies. The Church of England opposed nearly every step of that process, and in the few cases where it didn’t do so formally as a denomination, its Evangelical wing did so vociferously in the media, usually led in the public charge by Archbishop Carey and other senior bishops. And I mean every step – the equalisation of the age of consent; the abolition of the hateful Section 28; the granting of adoption rights to same sex couples; same-sex marriage. The introduction of civil partnerships was accompanied by an attempt to strip them of any social or spiritual meaning and constant denigration of gay and lesbian relationships; it remains forbidden to give civil partnerships any blessing in church. The outlawing of discrimination in employment saw the Church of England attempt to carve out as wide a scope as possible where it could continue to discriminate against queers. And, yes, it was about orientation rather than practice – ask Jeffrey John.
That is the record. There is no point in trying to minimise or obfuscate it. A couple of hours with Google and Hansard will reveal it in almost every detail…
Press release from Methodist Church House
07 June 2013
Bishops and Church leaders call on Government ministers to apologise
An alliance of Churches representing Christians from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland has written to the Prime Minister asking for an apology on behalf of the Government for misrepresenting the poor.
Church leaders, including the Right Revd Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, and the Right Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford, pointed out that in recent weeks senior members of the Government have given out misleading and inaccurate information about people on benefits. Outlining the inaccuracies, they asked for them to be corrected and for an apology to be offered to those who were misrepresented.
“We are concerned that these inaccuracies paint some of the most vulnerable in our society in an unfavourable light, stigmatising those who need the support of the benefits system,” the letter states. “No political or financial imperative can be given to make this acceptable.”
April saw some of the most controversial and wide ranging changes to the benefit system in a generation. In their letter, Church leaders, including the leaders of the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the United Reformed Church, said that while they hold no common view on welfare reform, they all share the belief that that those in receipt of benefits are loved and valuable.
“What unites us is the belief that the debate around these reforms should be based on truthful information,” they write. “We ask you, as Prime Minister and as leader of the Conservative Party, to ensure that the record is put straight, and that statistics are no longer manipulated in a way which stigmatises the poorest in our society.”
ENDS
Notes:
The full text of the letter to the Prime Minister is available here.
Appendix one to the letter to the Prime Minister is available here.
Appendix two to the letter to the Prime Minister is available here.
9 CommentsFirst, a statement from one of the bishops who was not present in the House of Lords. The Bishop of Gloucester has issued this The Marriage (same Sex Couples) Bill.
… I accept that the bill has now received overwhelming support in both Houses of Parliament and that the task of the Church, through the bishops, is now to respect the view that has been so clearly endorsed and to argue for any amendments that might make the legislation more acceptable to those whose consciences are troubled.
I share the view expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the debate that the Church has not often served the LGBT communities in the way it should. I hope we shall be more affirming and supportive for the future and in particular that the House of Bishops Working Party on Human Sexuality, of which I am a member, will be able to help the Church towards a more positive valuing of committed and faithful homosexual partnerships.
In the light of the suggestion in the Telegraph that bishops had been put under pressure by Church of England officials to abstain from voting on the Bill, I need to say very firmly that no such pressure was put on me (nor, I think, on any bishop). The pressure that we have experienced has been an unprecedented campaign of letters, emails and phone calls from those urging us to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill…
And before the vote the Bishop of Lichfield had published this: Bishops in the House of Lords & the Marriage Bill.
Today, the Church Times carries a report of the debate by Madeleine Davies Bishops gather in Lords to vote against gay-marriage Bill which also notes that several Christian peers spoke in favour of the bill.
And there is a leader article, signed by Paul Handley, under the title More than one voice. This should be read in full, but it concludes this way:
11 Comments…No legislation framed at such a juncture is going to be perfect. But, whatever the flaws of this Bill, it is important that the present debate is seen for what it is: a test of the Church’s ability to address people who are, by and large, more compassionate and accepting than the Church is currently perceived to be. The general population sees marriages that do not look like marriages, cohabitations that do, and same-sex relationships that can look like either. For their part, many in the Church see only an ideal – which is odd, given the pastoral encounters that churchpeople have, and the range of relationships that exist in most congregations.
Once the legislation is passed, as we assume it will be, there will not be an opportunity for a clearer, more nuanced debate. This is it. Hereafter, the Church’s pronouncements on marriage will be coloured by the reputation it gains now. At present, this appears to be censorious, and out of touch with reality. Its criticisms of poor legislation are interpreted as simple prejudice. In reality, the Church is divided on this issue, and it is vital that those who have a more confident view of marriage, and a more open view of sexuality, make their voices heard.
Updated Thursday afternoon
Church of England press release
Statement from the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
05 June 2013
“Both Houses of Parliament have now expressed a clear view by large majorities on the principle that there should be legislation to enable same-sex marriages to take place in England and Wales. It is now the duty and responsibility of the Bishops who sit in the House of Lords to recognise the implications of this decision and to join with other Members in the task of considering how this legislation can be put into better shape. The concerns of many in the Church, and in the other denominations and faiths, about the wisdom of such a move have been expressed clearly and consistently in the Parliamentary debate. For the Bishops the issue now is not primarily one of protections and exemptions for people of faith, important though it is to get that right, not least where teaching in schools and freedom of speech are concerned. The Bill now requires improvement in a number of other key respects, including in its approach to the question of fidelity in marriage and the rights of children. If this Bill is to become law, it is crucial that marriage as newly defined is equipped to carry within it as many as possible of the virtues of the understanding of marriage it will replace. Our focus during Committee and Report stages in the coming weeks and months will be to address those points in a spirit of constructive engagement.”
Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester
Convenor of the Lords Spiritual
The statement published above has been reported in the Telegraph by John Bingham in this way: Church of England gives up fight against gay marriage
56 CommentsThe Church of England has effectively accepted defeat over gay marriage signalling that it will no longer fight against a change in the law.
In a short statement, the established Church said that the scale of the majorities in both the Commons and Lords made clear that it is the will of Parliament that same sex couples “should” be allowed to marry.
The Bishop of Leicester, who leads the bishops in the House of Lords, said they would now concentrate their efforts on “improving” rather than halting an historic redefinition of marriage.
It represents a dramatic change of tack in the year since the Church insisted that gay marriage posed one of the biggest threats of disestablishment of the Church of England since the reign of Henry VIII.
And it comes despite a warning from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, that the redefinition of marriage would undermine the “cornerstone” of society……And he [Bishop of Leicester] made clear that the bishops would look not only at strengthening opt-outs for those who oppose a new definition of marriage but at the future practicalities for people in same-sex unions.
He signalled that bishops would seek to introduce a notion of adultery into the bill and extend parental rights for same-sex partners.
Under the current bill people in a same-sex marriages who discover that their spouse is unfaithful to them would not be able to divorce for adultery after Government legal experts failed to agree what constitutes “sex” between gay or lesbian couples.
The bishops are also seeking to change a provision which says that when a lesbian woman in a same-sex marriage has a baby her spouse is not also classed as the baby’s parent.
The result is that in some cases children would be classed as having only one parent…
Press Release
Comment on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill’s second reading in the House of Lords
The House of Lords has spent two days debating the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. On Tuesday, 4 June, the House rejected an amendment tabled by Lord Dear, a crossbench peer and former West Midlands chief constable, opposing the Bill – 390 votes to 148.
A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said:
“The Church’s principled objection to the legal re-definition of marriage is consistently and clearly set out.
“Following the Bill’s second reading in the House of Lords, the Church’s aim is to ensure the Bill, as it goes to committee stage, is amended so that it effectively delivers the protections that the Government promised to provide for schools, religious organisations and individuals.”
1 CommentBefore the voting yesterday Andrew Brown had written at Cif belief The rump church opposition to gay marriage is naked patriarchy with the strapline:
It’s not the bill but evangelical opposition to it that weakens the status of the church and diminishes Christianity’s role in society
Andrew concludes this way:
…The fiasco over gay marriage is part of a general defeat for conservative Christians right now. The other wing, often involving the same people, is the collapse of resistance to women bishops in the Church of England. When I read that Conservative evangelicals are outraged at the prospect of admitting that women are lawfully bishops and their superiors and feel that they will have to lie or leave the church, as a recent press release stated, I want to break out the world’s smallest violin and play a jig on it.
All of their arguments have broken down into naked patriarchy, and that really isn’t an attractive sight, as the story of Noah makes clear.
There will always be conservative Christians, of course; and there will always be silly liberal policies which they are right to resist. But for the foreseeable future there won’t be any credible conservative Christian organisations to voice their fears.
And Paul Johnson had written on his ECHR Sexual Orientation Blog about UK Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill and the ECHR:
…At the heart of legal arguments made by religious opponents of the Bill is the now regularly expressed fear that the rights of religious organizations are being trampled on by homosexuals in Strasbourg. Yet the reality is the opposite of this and the Court has repeatedly held that, in the sphere of relationship rights, it is for the member state to determine its own legal landscape. In this respect it is worth recalling the opinion of David Thór Björgvinsson (judge for Iceland, a member state that permits same-sex marriage) in Burden v the United Kingdom which, in reflecting on the development of civil partnership legislation in the UK, stated:
…it is important to have in mind that each and every step taken in this direction, positive as it may seem to be from the point of view of equal rights, potentially has important and far reaching consequences for the social structure of society, as well as legal consequences […] It is precisely for this reason that it is not the role of this Court to take the initiative in this matter and impose upon the Member States a duty further to extend the applicability of these rules with no clear view of the consequences that it may have in the different Member States. In my view it must fall within the margin of appreciation of the respondent State to decide when and to what extent this will be done.
After the vote, there were some positive religious responses;
Some other comment articles:
Savi Hensman at Ekklesia has written Christians divided as Lords back equal marriage Bill.
Damian Thompson wrote at the Telegraph Gay marriage is not a faith issue, says Archbishop of Canterbury. That sounds like a pretty big concession to me.
Stephen Hough writes in the Telegraph Equal marriage: could Justin Welby’s support save the Church of England?
4 CommentsThe vote in the House of Lords on Lord Dear’s fatal amendment was 148 in favour of the amendment, i.e. to deny the bill a Second Reading, and 390 against the amendment. Accordingly, the bill was approved on Second Reading by a voice vote.
There were 14 Church of England bishops present and voting, of whom 9 supported the Dear amendment and 5 abstained. We will publish the names of the bishops as soon as they are available.
Bishops who supported the Dear amendment:
Birmingham
Bristol
Canterbury
Chester
Coventry
Exeter
Hereford
London
Winchester
Bishops who abstained:
Derby
Guildford
Leicester
Norwich
St.Edmundsbury & Ipswich
The Hansard record of the second day of debate begins here. An index of Tuesday’s speakers is here (scroll down to 3.06 pm). The Division occurred at 6.24 p.m.
The official analysis of the voting can be found here:
33 CommentsContents: 148 | Not Contents: 390 | Result: N/A
Contents Total: 148
Bishops 9
Conservative 66
Crossbench 46
Labour 16
Liberal Democrat 2
Other 9Not Contents Total: 390
Conservative 80
Crossbench 68
Labour 160
Liberal Democrat 73
Other 9
The Church of England issued this briefing note to members of the House of Lords in preparation for the Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. It includes a Q and A section which goes into a number of details.
For convenience of comparison, here is a link to what was issued at the time of the Report/Third Reading in the House of Commons.
6 CommentsUpdated Tuesday lunchtime
The Hansard report of the first day of debate is now available starting here at 3.10 pm, and continuing at 6.01 pm, after a half hour interruption for other urgent business, over here. The debate adjourned at 10.46 pm. It will resume today at around 3 pm.
A full index of speeches by speaker is here (scroll down).
Links to speeches by bishops and former bishops:
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s own record of his own speech can be found on his own website.
In his speech Hansard says he said that:
…Although the majority of Bishops who voted during the passage of the Civil Partnership Act through your Lordships’ House were in favour of civil partnerships a few years ago, it is also absolutely true that the church has often not served the LGBT communities in the way it should…
Whereas in his own transcript he says that he said:
Although the majority of Bishops who voted during the whole passage of the Civil Partnerships Act through your Lordships’ House were in favour of civil partnerships a few years ago, it is also absolutely true that the church has often not served the LGBT communities in the way it should. [emphasis added]
Update Hansard has been modified, and the word “whole” has been [re-]inserted in the sentence in the official record. Those who have studied the analysis linked below will see why the inclusion of this word is so significant.
TA readers will recall that back in June 2012 we published this detailed analysis of how the bishops spoke and voted on this matter, prepared by Richard Chapman: The Lords Spiritual and Civil Partnerships Legislation.
14 CommentsBishop Alan Wilson has published an analysis of the constitutional implications of bishops supporting Lord Dear’s fatal amendment under the title Perils of the Aristocracy: A Political Scientist Writes…
The political scientist in question is Dr Iain McLean, Professor of Politics at Oxford University, Fellow of Nuffield College, and Vice President for Public Policy of the British Academy.
His analysis is reproduced in full below the fold.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary advisers to the bishops who tweet at @churchstate have denied that any advice to abstain etc. has been issued to bishops as described by John Bingham in the Telegraph.
9 CommentsOliver Wright in the Independent has an interview with Labour peer Lord Alli: Lord Alli: ‘I was called sinful and dirty. And that was in a Lords debate’. It includes the following comments on the bishops:
5 Comments…He divides the opponents of gay marriage into two distinct categories. “There are those who have deeply held religious views and then there is a second group who oppose now but will probably repent later.
“They were the type of people who voted against the equalisation of consent and regretted it. They are the people who voted against civil partnerships and regretted it. And I’ll believe they’ll vote against gay marriage and they’ll regret it in five years’ time.
“I telephone them, I write to them I text them I try and make them turn up. I try and discuss the issues that worry them. It’s all the things you would expect me to do.”
But he is also attempting to persuade the Bishops – 26 of whom have seats in the Lords – not to present a unified front against gay marriage and to recognise that they do not speak for the whole Church when they oppose it.
To this end he recently had a meeting with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, that led to a rather remarkable public letter from the Bishop of Salisbury that challenged Church of England orthodoxy.
“I said that I knew there were people in the Church – such as the Bishop of Salisbury – who were supportive of gay marriage and I asked him [that] if I went to see him and asked him to do a piece would he have your blessing? He said ‘Absolutely. And that goes for any bishop.’”
So that’s what Alli did; leading to a 1,200-word letter from the Bishop, now being sent to every peer, in which he explains why he does not agree with the current orthodoxy.
Alli thinks there are more who share the view of the Bishop of Salisbury but for political reasons find it harder to speak out. “You go to a meeting and they give their position and their eyes almost roll as they are leaving the room,” he says.
“Some of them don’t fundamentally believe their own position on this.”
He also points out the inherent contradiction in the Church of England’s position – that while they are protected from having to conduct gay marriages they don’t want to give other groups the freedom to do so.
“They argue religious freedom except where they don’t like it. They don’t want gay marriage – so that means the Quakers can’t have it or the liberal Jews can’t have it. They’re in a pretty hypocritical place.”
John Bingham reports in the Telegraph Bishops under pressure to abstain in gay marriage vote.
Despite vocal opposition from the Church to the Government’s plans to allow same-sex couples to marry, it is understood that senior officials have personally urged bishops to stay away from this week’s vote.
They fear that a large bloc of clerics turning up to vote down the bill could rebound on the Church, reopening questions over the right of bishops to sit in the Lords and even raise the prospect of disestablishment.
They have also told bishops privately that they are convinced the bill, which includes legal “locks” to prevent clergy being forced to carry out same-sex weddings against their beliefs, is the “best” they could hope to achieve…
And this:
12 Comments…In a letter to be handed in to Lambeth Palace this morning, 30 leaders of independent churches, including a string of so-called “black majority” churches, warn that the church of England faces a “defining point” over the issue of same-sex marriage.
It is understood that the Archbishop intends both to speak and vote against the bill. But officials are anxious not to be seen to be taking on the Government over the issue. Last night Lambeth Palace confirmed that Archbishop Welby would attend but declined to comment on how he would vote.
A recent Church of England briefing note to MPs warmly praised the Government for introducing legal protections for clerics.
A total of 26 bishops are entitled to sit in the Lords – although the bishops’ bench is currently reduced with the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, recovering from a cancer operation, and the see of Durham left vacant by Archbishop Welby’s promotion to Canterbury.
But under current convention they take turns to sit in the Lords, with usually only two bishops in attendance for most debates.
Officials in Church House are said to have urged bishops to limit their numbers to around six at the most for the controversial debate. It is thought that up to 10 of them could defy the advice and vote against the bill.
The officials are said to be afraid that were the bill to be defeated by a handful of votes, the bishops would be singled out for blame.
One senior source said that officials in the Church had begun to “call the shots more and more” during the last 10 years, under the tenure of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams.
“What they are scared of is that this goes down by a few votes and then the bishops are seen as having swung the vote,” said one…
Civitas has published a set of essays from a very wide range of viewpoints. See Gay marriage: the debate for an explanation.
With the row over gay marriage set to reach the House of Lords on Monday, Civitas today publishes a wide-ranging collection of essays from the leading figures on both sides of this most polarised of debates.
The Meaning of Matrimony: Debating Same-Sex Marriage is edited by our deputy director Anastasia de Waal who, while herself strongly in favour of the reform, has sought to bring under one roof all of the arguments – for and against – to provide a definitive guide to the debate.
Most striking is the vehemence of opinion among so many intelligent, rational people with such different – often diametrically opposing – views…
The essays are in this PDF file: The Meaning of Matrimony.
Also, Andrew Goddard has written Misrepresenting same-sex marriage: The Bishop of Salisbury.
On the other hand, the Chief Executive of Barnardo’s is urging peers in the House of Lords to support the Marriage (Same Sex Couple) Bill and says “equal marriage will have a positive effect for children growing up in a gay household.” See this article by Anne Marie Carrie.
Update
There is a commentary on one of the Civitas articles in this piece at Ekklesia by Savi Hensman Carey’s scaremongering on equal marriage, polygamy and incest.
15 CommentsDr Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham, has written this Letter to a Saloon Bar Moralist.
7 CommentsThank you for your letter. The more people apply their first principles to this question, the closer we will come to a way forward so thank you for trying. I am sure many people, especially those of a certain age will share it instinctively, driven by a primal feeling of disgust about gay sex.
What I am finding also, however, is that your views appear anything but natural to vast numbers of people who simply see gay people as people, not defined by their sexual practices. The opposite answer is as clear to them, as yours is to you and the minority of my correspondents your letter represents…
Updated again Sunday afternoon
The Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples Bill) in the House of Lords will now be scheduled over two days, Monday and Tuesday, 3 and 4 June.
Updated The list of those who have asked to speak in the debate now stands at 90, about two-thirds of whom will speak on Monday, see list here. Only three active bishops (Leicester, Chester, Exeter) are listed, along with two retired bishops (Carey, Harries). There are however reports elsewhere that the Archbishop of Canterbury intends to speak.
The BBC has this news report: Late night votes on gay marriage could be a headache for Cameron which was written before the announcement relating to continuation on Tuesday. In his more recent post, Mark D’Arcy writes:
…Then the main business is the Marriage (Same Sex Couple[s]) Bill – with 86 peers now listed to speak. The Coalition business managers have responded to pressure from all sides (see earlier post) to rejig the debate to avoid sitting beyond midnight – and the vote will now be taken on Tuesday. Some peers may not like that, so watch out for complaints that this isn’t quite cricket…..Overshadowing proceedings is the rarity of a motion to decline to give the bill a second reading, from the Crossbencher, Lord Dear…
See this earlier article for links to the bill text and explanatory notes as it left the House of Commons.
There is a House of Lords Library Note about the bill, see here.
Read the transcript in Today’s Lords debates three hours after the debate.
2 CommentsChurch Society has issued a press release: Church Society calls on House of Lords to put the brakes on Same Sex Marriage Bill. The full text is copied below the fold.
more about Church Society here.
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