I really think its silly that gays would ever want to reconcile with a church that hates them. What more proof do you need that religion is bullshit when they hate you because of who you are?

@orathaic - if everyone who believed in women vicars had left the C of E there would be no women vicars now. Likewise the women bishops issue only fell by tiny amount. It is acceptable for people to remain within a church an still promote change. When change happens, everyone who didn't want that change is not obliged to leave. All organisations are broad churches of opinion.

If I were a Muslim and believed in flying horses I can't stop believing and join the Lutherans just so I could get married.

At draugnar, to clarify at the moment gay people can't marry in the UK. The C of E want to oppose any change including allowing Lutherans to marry gay people. The government are likely to vote to allow gay marriage for all religions who want to marry gay people, but specifically will outlaw the C of E from conducting gay weddings. The C of E of course are happy to be banned from doing something they don't want to do anyway, but still want to keep bam for other churches.

Maniac nobody has a problem with promoting change from within, I think what we're taking issue with is the government forcing it.

Also @draugnar - I think I might take your advise and set up my own religion. We at the Holy Pirate Church believe only touchable things are property, thoughts and ideas come from our spiritual leader and people merely act as vassals. It means of course that we do not recognise copyright or patents etc. hope that's OK with you all, but if it isn't I don't care as I have a right to believe what I want and you can't interfer with it.

Exactly Maniac. And you know what, I defend your right to believe that way. Just as I defend the right of many Christian faiths to allow 13 year olds to drink wine as part of a ceremony. If you wish to have a ceremony involving the piracy and do not infringe upon the universally accepted rights of the thinkers and creators to direct who can make money off of their work or take from their pockets by distributing their work to non-believers, then share away.

Make certain you get your church's legal paperwork in order so it gets all the rights recognized so when the artists sue you might have a valid argument to defend yourself with. But go for it.

@maniac - "The C of E want to oppose any change including allowing Lutherans to marry gay people."

This would be wrong. Separation of church and state and freedom of religion and all that over here. So I disagree with this stance of the CoE.

"The government are likely to vote to allow gay marriage for all religions who want to marry gay people" - Yay!

", but specifically will outlaw the C of E from conducting gay weddings."

Also wrong. Government shouldn't tell any church what it can and can't do any more than the church should tell the government. The will of the people as expressed by their vote tells government what to do and the will of the congregation, who elects their church leadership or the will of their church leaders if not elected but still feels the pressure of the congregation tells the Church what to do.


"The C of E of course are happy to be banned from doing something they don't want to do anyway, but still want to keep bam for other churches. "

This is also wrong in that they are trying to tell other churches what to do. If they wish to be sheeple for the government, then *you* need to change their view from within.

Noiw I understand the issue better, but you are taking the worng approach to that change. Your complaint is with legislation that would ban the CoE from conducting it. You should fight that legislation tooth and nail to force parliament to allow *all* churches to conduct them. But you should not fight for legislation that forces churches to conduct them. There is a difference between restriction, coercion , and freedom. You seem to desire to go from restriction to coercion (force them via law to conduct something) and this never works. Give the church the freedom to choose *then* work from within to convince the c hurch to move that way. That is the correct way to do this.

It's like Diplomacy. Telling someone they can't do it will just make them fight to do it. Telling someone they better or else will just make them flip you the bird. But giving someone the choice and then sweet talkign them to your way of thinking gets done just what you want done. Give the church the freedom then work from within to get them to accept and embrace that ceremony.

Just as I thought Draugnar - when the my Church impinges on your property rights, its a problem and needs to be constrained as to what so as not to "infringe upon the universally accepted rights of the thinkers and creators to direct who can make money off of their work blah, blah blah." But when my rights to marry are infringed for no good reason, that's fine.

I have said many times I'm happy for christians to believe that Gay people will burn in the hottest part of hell, no problem with that at all, in the same way you will defend my right to believe in piracy. We are on the same page. You maintain that my piracy churches beliefs should impinge on others property rights, you know what I agree (not necessariary with the law of copyright, but the fact it is the law and I and churches should abide by it. Our only difference is that you would deny a C of E gay person from marrying in a church, and I would allow it.

*my piracy churches beliefs shouldn't impinge on others property rights,

@yellowjacket - this comes back to the C of E being an established church. They have a duty to marry all people of any faith and of none, all they will be 'forced' to do is accept that gay friendly vicars can marry gay people. It won't force anybody who is against such things to attend such ceremonies.

@Maniac - First you confuse rights with freedoms. copyright is a right. Marriage is a freedom. Personal freedoms can be infringed upon. It happens. But I have already said you need to change the church from within. Law is not intended to coerce people's beliefs but to reflect and protect those beliefs. The law shoudl be that churches are allowed to marry gays if they choose. Then the members of those churches should work from within to get their churches to recognize those marriages.

Rights, on the other hand, are protected by law. The right to life. If your church believes in human sacrifice, it is not to be recognized and given the freedoms other churches would get. Instead it is to have any members who participate in a sacrifice jailed and or executed depending upon their role.

Your freedom to marry is not sacrosanct like the right to life is. The fact that you personally may or may not choose to respect the copyrights (notice the use of the word right in copyright) of others does not mean your freedom supercedes their right. Quite the opposite. Your freedom of religion never supercedes the right of another.

Now, your freedom to marry is a freedom that says you can get married, it doesn't grant your the privilege to force another to violate their freedom of religious belief. So you need to change their views from within because you don't have a legal right to place your freedom above theirs. Their freedom is a collective, yours is an individual. Your freedoms pale by volume compared to their collective.

So, rights are protected at the individual level and protected from being overrun by the collective, but freedoms are granted to the collective above the individual. See how that works?

And finally, the CoE should not be some "established" church. I guess the problem in communication here is that we don't have this "established" church bullshit because of our government being founded on true freedoms. If all you trukly want is the CoE to be forced (and not all) then I might be amicable to your cause as the CoE is more than just your normal church. But if you want to force, say, a Muslim Temple to conduct gay marriages, you will be met with great resistance from me.

Draugnar in Europe men and women have the right to marry and found a family. It is a right and not a freedom. We are at one with regards to the establishment of churches, but we have to work with what we have.

OK maniac, I do see your argument, but know too little about that setup to have much of a good opinion.

As I said, maniac, so long as it is some government anctioned and established church, I agree with you. But to force *every* church in every doneomination of every religion to marry gays, on that I must disagree. As much as I support the right for anyone to marry any other person of an accountable age and mind set (i.e. can't marry cars or animals or children or people who aren't legally allowed to enter into a binding contracts for whatever reason), I also support the freedom (or right if you will) of religion. I may nto agree with the beliefs of the bigots, but I will defend their freedom to have those beliefs so long as they don't infringe upon the basic human rights of others and I only see a coupe of those: life, liberty and the *pursuit* of happiness (not a right to happiness but to pursue it) in that order. IF a church came into a community and attacking gays in any way shape or form on public or private property not belonging to that church, I would have a problem with it. And I personally would never attend (or return to if I discovered mid attendance) any church function if I found out that the church was discriminatory against *any* class of people as that was not Christ's way. I would have a problem if I found out Pat Robertson received taxpayer dollars to spout his gay hate speech (I have a problem as it is that he gets to abuse public airwaves for that shit).

"But to force *every* church in every doneomination of every religion to marry gays, on that I must disagree. "

i didn't think anyone was forcing any churchs TO marry gay couples, it is merely an option.

That is what Maniac has indicated he wants, is to force a church to perform gay marriages. I look for clarification if he just means the church of England because of it's establishment with the government of England or if he means every church of every religion in the UK.

Well said, Draug.

It's political correctness gone mad

Draugnar again to clarify I want every religion to treat straight people the same as gay people. I'm always interested in your views on rights and freedoms, but I don't see how my proposals contradict anybody's rights or freedoms.

The Universal declaration states that...

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status...

It goes on...Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

On the subject of religion it says. "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

So everybody must have the same rights. Men and woman have a right to marry. You have the right to FREEDOM of religion.

Where does it say that an organised religion can deny anybody any of their rights?

I sometimes wonder if people start with a position ie "gay marriage is wrong" then try to downplay the right to marry and call it a freedom, and upgrade the freedom of religion and call it a right.

The UK House of Commons has just voted to allow same sex marriage. No religion will be obliged to conduct such services and it will be illegal for the established church (C of E) to conduct such services.

Voted for it by a good margin too. 400 votes in favour to 175 votes against.

Who on earth cares? Apart from inheritance and suchlike issues, in Europe, marriage is no big deal anymore. Two people live together. Ok. Gender is not an issue.
Storm in a D-cup.

@Maniac, while i approve of your reading, the universal declaration was written without gay marriage in mind. I'm fairly certain the phrase 'Men and women of full age...have the right to marry' was meant to imply a man and a woman, not any adult regardless of gender. (which is why is says Men and Women, rather than Adults of full age - though that wording would be superfluous)

@Timur, marriage is an issue - the right goes on to 'founding a family' - which impinges on adoption rights, and likewise in countries which do not grant the right to transgender people to legal change their sex (that is have a document stating they are the sex they have changed their body to... ie the sex they always felt) They also have concerns about marriage - because if someone is married and decides to legally changes their sex, but same-sex marriage is illegal... I guess you can see the issue for the T members of the LGBT alliance.

I'm very glad to see this pass. Wasn't expecting it to happen so fast.

"Where does it say that an organised religion can deny anybody any of their rights?"

Where does it say they are trying to?

I, Pope YJ of the Church of the Sanctimonious Turd (CoST) forbid you, Maniac, to marry.

Yeah, that did a lot of good. Would the reaction be any different if some real religious figure tried to deny you?

@ Timur

Gay people who want to get married care, obviously. And the majority of people in the country who value marriage as an institution also care.

Well done Cameron, and the MPs in general. A high quality and civalised debate, and a clear result. Makes you proud.

@ Orathaic

Why shouldn't Cameron take credit? Without his this would never

@Maniac - Beyond what orathaic points out about "man and woman", that says you have the right to marry. It doesn't say you have the right to marry in a specific church. You are simply wrong to demand that every church grant you the right to marry another man. Your interpretation is worng on so many levels and your demand so unreasonable as to make me think you are now trolling.

@orathaic - the first bit is quite clear "everyone is entitled to all rights and freedoms"

damed computer...

Anyway, as I was saying...

@ Orathaic

Why shouldn't Cameron take credit? Without his leadership this would never have happened. It is very much down to him. The so-called progressives of Labour were in power for three terms and wasted their time playing class warfare with foxhunting and traditional warfare with the Middle East.

@Maniac - You have the right to marry. You do not have the right to demand that *every* church let you marry in their church. I have the right to marry. But the Mormon church isn't gonna let me get marrie din their tabernacle because I'm not Mormon. Likewise the Jewish and Muslim Synagogues/Temples will deny me access to them to get married. You may as well sondier yourself to not be a member of any church that abhors homosexuality and find one that does or try to change the church from within, but legislating it is simply bullshit and you are either being intentionally obtuse, a anti-religious bigot hiding in CoE clothing, or are simply an idiot for not seeing that.