Draugnar - a gay person shouldn't have to choose his country or his religion or his sexuality.

To clarify, the UK government will welcome gay marriage in the Lutheran church. The Barry thing is they are allowing or churches to opt into performing gay marriages if they so wish, while at the same time banning the Church of England from performing a gay marriage. Completely bizarre.

Well, government bannign a church from performing it is wrong. A church having a right to refuse to perform it is within their rights. No private organization (a church is a private organization) should be able to force government to make everyone follow their view but nor shoud they be forced *by* government to follow a particular view in any circumstance beyond true human rights (right to life or liberty, ie.e no human sacrifices or indentured servitude).

"I'm amused when you complain that you don't want zombie like imposition. What the hell do you think the Jewish, Muslim and christen faiths do? "

Last I checked, it is a little more difficult to country your country to fuck off than to tell some church group to fuck off. Churches (synagogues, Temples, whatever) have every right to say "these are the basic tenants of our faith,: follow them or you are not part of our faith." If you don't like that, go form your own country and your own religion. Religious freedom means just that: freedom of the church to follow the tenants of it's beliefs and to demand that anyone who wishes to declare themselves members of that church also follow those tenants. So yes, you should have to change churches if you want to have a gay marriage and your church won't do it.

tell your country...

David Cameron is not a very good prime minister but, I'm not going to argue against gay marriage being legalize nationwide.

The Church of England - formed by a fat homophobic alcoholic misogynist who had 6 wives and preferred a cold chop to a hot steak.
He didn't like Catholics and dressed in womens clothes.
I'm glad to say many of the traditions of the founding father King Henry VIII are still practised today.as they were in 1534.
Church of England - do what the hell you want when you want, as long as you're a bloke

Draugnar - there are two bits to this argument. First is the C of E don't want the Jews or Lutherians to carry out gay weddings! What the church wants to do is to claim marriage for the religious. They want to deny gay people getting married anywhere and then say their rights are being undermined. Let me be absolutely clear I have absolutely no qualms with the church believing being gay is an abonomation, what I object to is that they or anyone can treat people differently based on their orientation. A hotel or football club or chess club couldn't treat people differently and religious organisations should be no different. The C of E should either offer baptism, marriage and funeral rights to everyone, or they can choose to offer such services to no one. Again I'm happy with whatever they decide.

The secondment is about competing rights. It comes back to my previous point about rights being a legal construction. It is right in my opinion for society as a whole to decide what rights an individual has and how they are curtailed for the public good. It is right in my opinion for the state to limit the age of consent, limit the sale and use of alcohol and cigarettes to minors and to prevent and define child abuse. Where those lines are drawn is a matter rightly for the state. It would be inconceivable if organisations could opt out of any laws they don't like. A while ago a number of inhabitants of Pitcairn island abused several children. They were subject to British law but didn't think it should apply to them as they thought they were doing nothing wrong and they should be exempted because they believed it was fine to have sex with young children. How would you decide such things, just let everyone do what the hell they want?

"The C of E should either offer baptism, marriage and funeral rights to everyone, or they can choose to offer such services to no one. Again I'm happy with whatever they decide."

Therein lies the flaw of your argument. They should offer them to whoever they like, but should not be able to tell other churches that they can't offer them. Each church/denomination is unique and distinct and, as such, has their own say in what they do and don't offer and to whom they do or don't offer it. It would be like saying "the Corvette Club you belong to should offer membership to everyone or to no one, not just to people who own Corvettes".

So again, the CoE is well within their rights and privileges to say you can't have a gay wedding there. Where they are *not* within their rights and privileges is to say that a nearby Lutheran church can't conduct gay wedding s and that the government can't recognize them should the that other church perform them anyhow.

Re: Rights... All rights should be recognized until they infringe upon another's rights. For gay marriage, they should have a right to be married and have that marriage legally recognized. they do not, however, have a right to force a specific religion to marry them. It is a general right (the right to the marriage) not a specific right (the right to a CoE marriage). Like wise, the CoE has a right to practice their religion as they see fit so long as it doesn't infringe on other rights. It is a specific right (the right to deny gays to marry in their church) not a general right (the right to deny gays marriage in society and or government). See the difference.

It's political correctness gone mad ......

Draugnar - could a hotel in the US deny two gays from sharing a hotel room? In the UK they can't if they offer a service to the public they have to offer it to the whole population. Could a college deny a black man enrolment? Can your shops put up signs like we used to have in the UK 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs'. The beliefs of the managers, owners and shareholders of the hotel, football club and college are irrelevant. The beliefs of a church are irrelevant too. Abide by the law, end of.

@Maniac - churches are private organizations, nto public services in the US. And yes, a privately owned hotel could deny a room to a gay couple. Privately owned, mind you. We call them "bed and breakfast" places and the law is that any business can deny anyone service for any reason (or none at all) at any time in the US. Only truly public services (paid for with tax payer dollars) are forbidden from denying service.

To help clarify... A health club can be for women only and deny men access provided they are privately owned and operated. Curves denies men membership. It isn't considered discrimination. So sorry but your argument fails as the law protects from government discrimination over here, not business discrimination.

"We call them "bed and breakfast" places"

Do you, really? I don't know... you Yanks and your crazy foriegn ways. It's enough to make a man's head spin.

Draug that's not *entirely* true, but you are basically right in principle I think. A hotel or landlord or country club who denied two gays a room or a lease or membership could be in deep trouble.

I take maniac's point, i.e. why do churches get to be an exception? But I think it's a bit much to say they have to go that far against their belief systems (though I would laugh my ass off watching catholics forced to perfrom gay weddings, epic!).

So the true question is, what makes religion so special that they get to be an exception and practice their bigotry without interference from the state? Even I, a pretty progressive person, wouldn't want to make them do it - I think it comes down to the fact that a marriage is just as legitimate whether it has the sanction of any specific church or not.

Maniac, what is gained by forcing the CoE to conduct these ceremonies? It really does seem that it's not much of a stretch to call that religious persecution - i.e. the government is forcing a change in church practices. Even though you and I think these practices reflect bigotry, I'm not so sure the end justifies the means - religion is something that really ought to be left alone to the idiots for the most part.

Draugnar - our B&Bs can't discriminate, if they want to offer services they need to offer them universally.

@yellowjacket - if there was two distinct groups, C of E and gay people, then this obv would never be an issue. But there are gay people who are members of the C of E. it is not correct to assume that because the people at the top of organisation hold certain views that all the members hold those views.

@ Maniac

That would be a good point if not for the fact that those at the top of the CofE have generally been far more liberal and progressive than our rank and file. It is the house of laity that holds most strongly the views you would rather blame on the bishops and the clergy.

@octavious. - there are millions of christened C of E members that don't attend regularly that don't even know what the laity is. I have no doubt that if ever person in the UK who the C of E have a duty to baptise, marry or bury had a vote the result would be to allow gay marriage.

Re: Draugnar's point about joining or forming a new church, let me ask you a question. If you pulled up at a privately owned toll booth that refused to let you cross on the river because you were an ex-marine (or for some other reason you couldn't change, height, colour, sex etc) would you build a new bridge? Most if not all of the C of E churches date back hundreds of years, have a got to build a time machine, buy a plot of land and build a church just to get married to someone?

Also can your private schools refuse to enrol black students?

@thread, sorry i've been describing the position of the catholic church in Ireland, rather than the protestant Church of England... I stand corrected on the issue of public services offered by the CoE

@ Maniac

I have some doubts myself, although you may be right. Still whether the laity holds the position it does because it represents the majority or because only the traditional minority cares enough about the Church to bother getting elected doesn't really matter. I don't see how the more liberal members of the Church have any right to complain if they don't even bother to learn how it works.

To me it looks like you're in the minority on the Church. A significantly larger minority is set against you and being larger they have the power. The majority don't give a damn.

@ maniac

You have to live in a bloody small and isolated place to only have a CofE church within walking distance. Everywhere in the country has a variety of churches within a short drive.

Maniac - Clearly your views don't align with the CoE official stance. Why continue to be a member if you don't believe what they do? Religion is a personal belief system so your bridge analogy fails in that even private toll roads serve the general publoc and the CoE is more lile a private gentlemen's club in that it only serves it's members and may revoke membership anytime it likes. It has no obligation to the general public. They don't hold a monopoly on religion so, being private, have no obligation to serve everyone. It would be more akin two multiple toll booths across the river close to each other. If one doesn't serve you for whatever reason, you go join another. If none do, then you find a group of like minded people and build the bridge together.

@ Draug

If you only join a Church that believes exactly what you do you will be in a Church with a membership of one :p. The CofE is a catholic church and as such welcomes people like Maniac with open arms. Naturally it can't please everyone in all places, but it tries harder than most... Harder than any of its rivals, I would say.

Draugnar - "Maniac - Clearly your views don't align with the CoE official stance. Why continue to be a member if you don't believe what they do?" Octavious gives a good answer above, If I could add to it and say in when we change our law it is likely that reformist Jews will marry gay couples but Muslims won't. Should a Muslim give up everything he/she holds dear about his religion just to marry someone they love?

Each of us on here would like to see modifications and improvements, if we all left to form our own sites we wouldn't have a game to plan.

Your bridge analogy underlines how crazy it would be to have thirty or forty bridges across a river, one for women, one for black cars only, one for people between 5'8" and 6'0 etc, etc. Much easier to have one bridge, because the point is a black car going across a bridge in no way affects the rights of a 5'9" person going across the same bridge. This is a crucial point, people who don't want to go to a gay wedding don't have to go. Their building isn't sullied by the fact someone used it for a gay wedding when they weren't there.

@octavious - there may be thousands of churches within an hours drive. as of toady none of them could marry a gay couple.

Which will cease to be the case if Cameron wins the argument.

If the Muslim's love is in conflict with their religious views, then yes. Clearly that is not the religion for them. I don't see how you can't understand that. Clearly you *don't* hold everything about the CoE so dear or you wouldn't have this conflict. If I were gay, I wouldn't go to the Baptist church where being gay is viewed as a "choice" and a "sin". In fact, their intolerance was why I left the Baptist church and found my way back to Lutheranism.

And again, religion is a personal choice and an option. Crossing a river is not. Your continued insistence makes me believe you are just too close to the situation to see that it has tainted your opinion and doesn't reflect society's view that religion is an individual choice and churches should not be obligated to serve the general populace and violate their beliefs.

@maniac - " there may be thousands of churches within an hours drive. as of toady none of them could marry a gay couple. "

Unless the government is refusing to recognize gay marriage, this is simply not true. And even if the government refuse s to recognize gay marriage, this is still not true prima fascia. They simply could not issue a marriage license recognized by the law, but they could still marry and that marriage would be in the eyes of God. You already said that there is freedom of choice in which denomination you attend and I *know* that the Lutheran church world wide (except for a couple of extreme ones here in the US, like the Missouri Synod) allow gay marriages.

So, I guess where *my* confusion lies is why you are complaining about a politician working *towards* allowing gay marriage and are railing against the CoE unless it is keeping Parliament from passing legislation that accepts gay marriages.