Be Excellent To Each Other

The market will be expanded, and the church is excluding itself from the new section. Therefore, its market share shrinks. I didn't say its share of hetero marriages would decrease.

That won't stop the church spinning it that way in an attempt to get its own way.

Some churches want to do same sex marriages. The Quakers treat them as the same and would like to actually perform proper same-sex marriages, rather than blessing civil unions.

Call me cynical, but it wouldn't surprise me if Tory strategists reckon this would be a good way to dent the SNP. At one point, they were "hey, we're the forward-thinking froods on gay marriage", which I imagine might have given a little boost regarding the forthcoming referendum. If the Tories can ram through this policy before Christmas, they look slightly less like they're living in the 1930s. It'll also be a feel-good, open measure that might distract a bit from all the other shit they're doing. (I would say coalition, but I think it's fairly clear now that Clegg and Alexander are Tories in all but name, and Cable's presumably going to be replaced by a robot version while the anti-left-wingers lock him in a cupboard for having the audacity to very occasionally say "Hey, businesses sometimes need to pay more taxes!"

Still, I would have thought this no-brainer policy: marriage for all, and each individual religion can decide whether or not it wants to remain relevant. After this week's mess, I don't really give a flying fuck what the CofE thinks about gay marriage, and it can collectively go piss up a tree until the few idiots who hate women fuck right off. (Also, John Walker has an interesting take on the anti-women sentiment in the church and possible mistranslation that's now being used to keep women out.)

Do you really think it will have popular support?

I'm not sure they need to worry about trying to dent the SNP, do they? They seem to be doing pretty well at losing credibility all by themselves.

Among moderates/undecideds/younger people, yes, for the most part.

Young (and any right-minded) people, totally.

But would they really risk upsetting the party faithful?

At this stage in the cycle, I think they can. Besides, they could alway trot out the 'necessity of coalition' line.

I was thinking just now that I'm not certain they want to have a big fight with the Lords over this: they might just say 'well, we had a vote in the Commons like we said we would, shame their lordships didn't want it' rather than send it back and forth (and I think they'd have to start the ball rolling now if they want to use the Parliament Act).

I think the people it would upset are the kind who would still begrudgingly vote Tory anyway, just out of ingrained social oojamawhatsits.

On the plus side, it'd never be repealed. And I doubt those who are opposed to it would find that their own marriage had in any way been devalued.

It's one of the few issues where I struggle to understand the other side's point of view. I suppose it comes down to my belief that legal marriage is a construct of the state, rather than being ordained by any higher power.

Everyone knows it would - it's exactly like how a film ruins a book or a film franchise reboot ruins the original.I slipped into sweeping generalisations rather than being specific about the heads of CoE. Presumably the catholic church too, if they could stop themselves bursting into flame whenever it came up. Or buggering boys.

Mm. But, you know, fuck those guys. I find any argument against basic equality very dodgy these days. Just imagine if we replaced 'gay people' and 'women' with something else, and so:

- It's just wrong that black people can get married.
- It's wrong that black people can be bishops.
- There are good reasons why white people are paid more than black people. (That one, to be fair, mostly being a US issue, not a British one.)

And so on.

Gay marriage and women in the church are going to be issues people look back on in 30 years and wonder why there was even the slightest discussion about them being the right thing to do. Or at least I very much hope that's the case.

What Craig said.

The not allowing women bishops in was a backwards move, which is unusual as they normally move diagonally.

Well played.

What would Jesus do? He'd get in the faces of the various churches and tell them to stop being silly, and incidentally, the small matter of all that money could be solved by spreading it out to the poor, you twats. Jesus was rock'n'fucking roll, man. A rebel.

Another step closer.



I can't see any problem in religious organisations that want to conduct them being allowed to, and those that don't want to, not.

Nobody fucking does other than a small but very vocal minority

I don’t believe in church marriage full stop, although quite hypocritically I did marry in a church as that’s what my wife wanted. I did argue the point until my dad told me to the bride gets her way on the wedding day.

Not surprised that the church doesn’t want to do this really, they are set in there way and there practices etc are 100’s of years old.

I do think that it’s the church’s right to say no though, this is a belief rather than discrimination. No gay people are losing out as a result of this due to the civil partnership. Even with this there are small extra things that married people don’t get, but its fine for bias and difference to be there as long as gay people benefit.

These days everybody just falls over themselves to be PC, we had a “diversity” questionnaire at work from HR last month. When it came to marital status they were so keen to ensure they were PC they missed cohabiting of the list. This meant that 3 people who work for me couldn’t put anything down, including a gay guy who lives with his partner.

Are the two things mutually exclusive? Does it being a religious belief stop it from bring discrimination?

If my 'belief' were, say, that people of other races were subservient to white people, and therefore I couldn't work for one, therefore claimed my taxi cab/shop/hairdressers to be for whites only, it would still be discrimination, even though it was a belief.

[quote="asfish"] No gay people are losing out as a result of this due to the civil partnership./quote]

Apart from those gay Christians who wish to get married in their church and as yet can't. I really hope that a good number of churches take this opportunity to show that really are as progressive as they keep bleating on about being.

Why would these people even bother with an organisation that doesn’t accept them?

Do you choose your beliefs any more than you choose to be gay? It's a bit difficult for me to say as I can't find sense in any religion, but I know I couldn't choose to believe in god tomorrow.

But either way, there is a sizeable religious population that are gay. There are gay and lesbian Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and everything else. I went to university with a Jewish lesbian and asked how she reconciled the two, and she said there were gay Jewish groups and those she trusted in her circle of religious friends all knew and accepted her.

I would say that you don't always choose your beliefs, your parents have something do with that. A child whose parents bring them to church every week is going to be more likely to carry on going to church as an adult than a child who was never taken.

There are of course plenty of exceptions, my best mate’s dad was a vicar and he has no interest in the church and wouldn’t even go as a teenager to his dads services!

So there is always an element of choice with religion

With being gay you are born that way so not the same

As I said, it's difficult for me to say. I know I didn't choose my beliefs, they are just what make obvious and complete sense to me.

I can't see how there is any element of choice in the matter in MY case (important, as I wouldn't assume to speak for others). I can't choose what I believe in.

Of course you can! You have free will!

You clearly have strong beliefs which you don’t doubt, that’s not to say if we went out for dinner and I presented you with the best case ever in the world to change you beliefs that you couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Don’t worry its very doubtful this will happen!

What? The whole point of the changes are so that the churches who want to marry the gays can.

Er, no, I don't see it that way at all.

I can't just decide to myself 'I think from today I'll believe that a God exists' and then believe in that thing because I've chosen to believe it.

My beliefs may change through somebody's reasoned argument, coercion, persuasiveness or proof of something different to what I currently believe, but then it's not a choice I have made to believe something else, it is because someone or something has changed my beliefs, and I don't think that is a result of choice but of evidence or a convincing argument that has changed the way I see the world - changed my belief, not changed whether I choose to believe.

Again, that may be different for some people. There may be folks that say 'OK, I think I'll start believing in a god today', but I don't think that is usually the way it happens.

And that those gay people who wanted to get married in the church have that opportunity, too.

I don't think it's that simple for many people. I had the usual level of 1980s religious bullshit indoctrination. My primary school was primarily staffed by religious women. Assemblies often involved singing some horrible Christian bullshit while one of the teachers played piano (and the few resident Jehovah's Witnesses shuffled off prior to that, making those who weren't them determined to not be them). We had harvest and all the crap, and my last year's teaching there mostly involved some 60-something battle-axe teaching us about the Hebrews. I got an A in RE at the comp, but no-one had thought to teach us things like grammar and punctuation.

Despite my folks not being particularly religious (and less so as the years went on), despite my secondary education almost entirely omitting religion (beyond getting a little red Bible on day one, and having RE lessons until I was thirteen), and despite my rational brain knowing full well that most or all of the Bible is based on old stories that are essentially fiction, there's still residual stuff in my head. It's almost like "atheism doubt", if such a thing exists. Even with free will, it's not easy to eradicate this stuff, and so I can only imagine how tough it must be for people who were fully immersed in this growing up, with regular church attendance and so on.

By comparison, sexuality is something you have zero choice about. You're attracted to whoever you're attracted to, and that's something built directly into you, not something that's added by society and the people around you.

So, you think homosexuality is a genetic trait?

I think sexuality is hard-coded, yes, but also much more fluid than many people realise. In the west, we too often paint sexuality in extremes: straight or gay; more recently, 'bisexual' is also something people recognise, but I think there aren't three points, but many more. I also don't believe you have any choice in who (or what type of person) you're attracted to at a fundamental level, although attraction is admittedly also somewhat driven by experience. That means the type of person you might have gone for in your 20s might not be the type of person you go for in your 30s. However, the gender you're attracted to is unlikely to change dramatically or it's likely to widen/narrow from a certain point or range. What won't happen is someone get to 25 and abruptly 'decide' to be gay or straight if they were the other beforehand. I don't believe it's some kind of fashion statement, but a core aspect of who someone is.

Being bisexual is practically cheating, it literally doubles your opportunities for shagging.

I missed a trick there.

I asked my MP, Philip Davies, on twitter if he is still going to vote against gay marriage and asked him why. Reading his wikipedia page should provide illumination as to why it is unlikely one will get a well thought out reasoned response.

There are a whole bunch of Tory MPs who are suddenly experts on the very same ECHR that they hate and get badly confused. It would be funny if it wasn't important.

The Church don't have the right to say "No". They don't have the right to discriminate between a gay and a straight marriage.

However, they do have the right to refuse a request to hold a marriage ceremony between two people of the same sex. So it comes down to the difference between banning something and being forced to do something.

Incidentally, I don't think it matters if homosexuality is genetic/biological or a cultural construction.

My understanding is that it's not an issue of forcing anyone to do anything, but it is currently the case that gay marriage is not legally recognised. No one wants to make churches do it, but right now, they can't anyway. If they want to, they should be able to, and it souhld be legally recognised. If they don't want to, fine. But in a few years no one will go to that church.

The argument against seems to be that
1. If gay people get married, it'll stop straight people getting married, or even stop currently married straight people from being married anymore. Or something.
2. They are lying and will make churches marry gay people, which will lead to (1)
3. gay is the same as incest, beastiality, paedophillia, death, torture. It's the thin end of the wedge. Winterfest gone mad1111.

In some ways it is. All are types of sexual "deviancy" (for want of a better word). You've got as much choice about being a paedophile as you have about being straight, but that's still something we (as a society) attempt to 'cure' by slinging people in jail.

I'm not sure what my point is here, though. Er - carry on!

David Davies MP says but it is OK as he fought a gay boxer once.

Apart from the fact that it's dangerous to call homosexuality a "deviancy", I think the massive prevalence of homosexuality (and sex for non-reproductive purposes in general) across so many different species kind of puts the kibosh on the idea that it's "unnatural" anyway...

Ed: hmm, sorry, bit of a non-sequitur. I'm half asleep.

I figure you started off replying to me, and then started talking to someone else?

Yeah - see edit. Sorry!

No more internet today...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ ... y-backlash

presumably before returning to coloring in red most coutnries of the world, whislt crying about what once was.

Better news:

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... iage_plan/

Q: Why not allow polygamy?

Any person that wants more than one set of in-laws is far braver than I.

It's a very valid point, to be fair.

I rather assumed it would go the other way. A couple of extra husbands to help manage a woman would be damned useful at times.

Oof, imagine the second wave of insouciantly bigoted, bow-tied comedians... *shudder*

I tweeted at my MP again. I I remeber tonight, I'll email him.

"Dear Philip Davies, I've heard that you will not be voting in favor of the gay marriage proposals. If this is the case, could you explain the reasoning behind your choice? Ta, muchly, maliA"

Should do it.

As a housing officer, I can't wait for a law which means my employer is exempt from providing housing to people that the vast majority of the workforce don't think should have it.