C4M - Nailing colours

Having received a number of 'invitations' to nail my colours to the mast regarding the the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) I think I need first to point those asking back to the discussion that was held in this place on the 25th February following my agreement to post on it. In addition to this there was the attempt at discussing a 'middle ground' approach (October and November 2011) which sought to establish a place whereby the world might live together over this subject (which sadly drew so much fire that it crashed and burned). There have been other posts which have related to the C4M issue and now, it seems that I am in a place where I have three choices:

1. To ignore the calls,

2. To fudge the issue, or

3. State my views (which I thought I always did anyway) and take (and make) my position clear.

Seems to me that the C4M petition calls upon the current definition of marriage to be left as it is* and I would have to say that I don't see any reason to do anything other than this on the basis that:

When the civil partnership was first enacted it was obviously regarded as by some to be 'gay marriage'. The civil partnership gives the same legal rights and privileges as those afforded to the parties in a 'marriage' and so, especially where any modified 'marriage' would be in a civil setting, I see no need to change.

There is the issue of the 'God' bit, the very thing that makes the difference between civil and church marriage but this hasn't been the desire of some of the homosexuals I have dialogued with, they merely wanted the word 'marriage' to apply to them. Mind you, as they used the term anyway I don't see what difference legislation would make anyway and can think of may better ways of engaging in dialogue and spending government money.

So there you have it. There will always be people who will defy the Church of England ruling and offer 'marriage' or bless civil partnerships because they choose to ignore the rules. there will always be people who will lash out and attack others because of their mistaken belief in 'righteous anger' (rarely righteous and usually more like wickedness).

I am disturbed that the ASA might be acting against people for putting up an advert which seeks to support the law as it stands and in fact think this is an heterophobic or christophobic act (after all, any disapproval of the homosexual position draws the homophobic label quickly enough so why not use the same mechanism?).

I have to add that the many people that I know wh were not married in church but in a civil ceremony consider themselves married and as many seek the ceremony outside of church I see this as being something that is more about church that the label - but that's for another day!

So there you have it - you have asked and I have answered and I'm sure some will not like it, but that's life I guess, you just can't please everyone and as a Christian I seek to please one more than the rest.

I'll leave the last word to someone for whom this is an everyday reality



Pax

*The petition states ‘I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.’

Interesting Engagements

I was more than a little surprised to listen to a radio broadcast where the person being interviewed explained:

"We are not talking about religious marriages but about civil marriages, so the Church needs to stop getting itself so involved!"

Surely the 'religious marriages' are marriage services between male and female and the 'civil marriages' are surely what many see the civil partnership being and so what we really need is for those who want their 'civil marriages' to stop bringing the Church into the whole shooting match rather than the other way around?

Now I know that some want to (and even do) add a blessing in private (after all, history is full of people blessing what others have considered 'unblessable' so no change there) and we leave the two sides to merely continue doing what they consider right (or to be their right). An uneasy position but one that sees both sides in their corners rather than in the middle fighting.

Yesterday (is it something about me? I've checked the car for anti 'just about everything or anything stickers') having just finished a funeral I was putting my tat into the car when a man walked up to me and immediately attempted to engage me in conversation (I'm the italics, he's the bold!):

Hello, I'm gay, are you offended!
Not at the moment unless you're not trying to pull me and then I might be just a little!

Well, suffice to say this lovely bloke was trying to communicate with me regarding his views that as I had a dog-collar I had to be the enemy. He went on to point out that he was offended by the Church making judgements about his lifestyle and how this was 'natural' and was not morally wrong. I kept smiling and eventually, having made a point which he obviously struggled with, found myself free to carry on my merry way.  All in all a very sad encounter for an number of reasons and at a number of levels.

As a postscript I have a sneaky suspicion that he perhaps thought he knew who I was as he did mention a name as he approached and towards the end, before scuttling away, seemed to think he'd received a very different response from that he either expected or hoped for. Still, it added to the confusion of the normal daily round I guess and hopefully my question regarding what the population of a desert island might be if it were inhabited only by those in 'natural' relationships might be a hundred years on.

Great to dialogue, isn't it? Greater still if they'd dialogue with the right person (or at least remembered what their photo' looked like so that they engaged with them - mind you, now I'm more worried that I might look like the person they were at odds with and if it's who I think it is - now I'm offended!!!)

Blast :-(