Church of England Warn Against Gay Marriage. - Page 2
Under current law, anyone who is resident in England has the legal right to marry in their Church of England parish church irrespective of religious affiliations. Many people these days only ever go to church to get married or see others tie the knot. The church is becoming less and less part of peoples busy lives than ever before, a recent survey carried out across the south of England found that most parish church services drew a congregation of less than twenty. It should also be noted that the Church of England only perform a quarter of all English marriages at the moment and one in four of those ends in divorce.
“Hardly anybody goes to church these days, the only time they do is for weddings, funerals and christenings. Weddings bring in a lot of cash for a local parish church, so you’d have thought the Church of England would have welcomed this new revenue stream!” Max Dean, a businessman from Hove told me this morning.
“The hypocrisy of the Church of England is remarkable by anybody’s standards, they bless animals in pet services, they’ve blessed warships, aeroplanes, football teams and even buildings, yet they cant find it in themselves to bless two people in a committed monogamous long term relationship who happen to be of the same sex.” Commented Alex Coburn a former church deacon, echoing the sentiment felt by many both in and out of the church.
“There’s manifestly no evidence that the recognition of long term same sex relationships has any impact on the institution of marriage for heterosexuals.” Combated Stonewalls Ben Summerskillagainst claims from the Church that legalising same sex civil marriage would harm forever the sanctity of marriage.
This is one debate that is sure to rage on and on until the bill is put before parliament and the vote taken. Even then there will be more talk before it goes on to become law, if not now, then later. Maybe in thirty years time the Church of England will apologise for campaigning against marriage equality, after all in 2006 they apologised for their part in the slave trade, running a plantation in the West Indies and a number of bishops owning hundreds of slaves, furthermore, bishops of the day also voted against the abolishment of the slave trade.
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