Am I missing something here? The Telegraph is getting it’s gender-specific underwear in a twist over nothing, isn’t it?
The first part of this, frankly, piss poor piece starts of invoking Orwell, by claiming the government is changing the meaning of the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ to make them interchangeable…
Civil servants have overruled the Oxford English Dictionary and hundreds years of common usage effectively abolishing the traditional meaning of the words for spouses.
[…]
It comes as part of a Government initiative to “clarify” what words will mean when gay marriage becomes law.
But critics described it as the vocabulary of “cloud cuckoo land”.
It follows claims by opponents of the redefinition of marriage that universally understood terms such as father and mother might be simply deleted by bureaucrats on official forms.
That would be fucking mad, wouldn’t it? How can the government just get rid of words? That’s just downright, er, erm, Orwellian!
Fear not, dear reader. We now move into the second part of the article where some sense is spoken, but not very clearly, if anyone got that far past the outrage just gushing out from the page.
Instead officials have decided to allow the words for the spouses to be used interchangeably for people of either gender in some contexts.
You see? “Some contexts”. The Telegraph gives an example…
The guidance gives the example of some early health and safety legislation drafted in 1963 which includes a range of exemptions for family businesses where the terms husbands and wives will mean people of either gender.
“This means that ‘husband’ here will include a man or a woman in a same sex marriage, as well as a man married to a woman,” it says.
“In a similar way, ‘wife’ will include a woman married to another woman or
a man married to a man.
“The result is that this section is to be construed as including both male and female same sex marriage.”
Yet it then goes on to say that in future legislation the traditional male-only meaning of husband and female-only understanding of wife could make a comeback – but not in all cases.
“The term ‘husband’ will in future legislation include a man who is married to another man (but not a woman in a marriage with another woman),” it adds, confusingly.
“And ‘wife’ will include a woman who is married to another woman (but not a man married to another man) unless specific alternative provision is made.”
Er, yeah. That is confusing. It would be much easier to say in existing legislation, ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ can be interchangeable depending on the circumstances, and the people the legislation applies to, which will not be a problem to devine
In future legislation a ‘husband’ is a married man and a ‘wife’ is a married woman, irrespective of what gender their spouse is.
See? That’s not so hard is it? It doesn’t quite fit the agenda of needlessly restricting who can marry who to fit some outdated bigotry, though.
The church should just fuck off and shut the fuck up.
The threat of an unprecedented clash between church and state over the issue of gay marriage has opened up after the Church of England delivered an uncompromising warning to the government against pressing ahead with controversial proposals.
The deadiline for the consultation is appraoching and the church is panicking a little from the sounds of it.
Introducing same-sex marriage could lead to the church being forced out of its role of conducting weddings on behalf of the state, the church claimed in a potentially explosive submission in response to the government’s consultation on gay marriage, which closes on Thursday.
This issue could lead to the church being dis-established. And this is a bad thing? Surely it’ll ease the workload on the clergy, and that has got to be A Good Thing, hasn’t it?
In a 13-page submission, the church says it cannot support the proposal to enable all couples, regardless of their gender, to have a civil marriage ceremony.
“Such a move would alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history,” it says.
It wouldn’t alter a thing for anyone except for the people that want to get married, and tell me if I’m wrong, but with civil partnerships already in place the only real difference would be what the union between two people of the same sex can legally be called.
“Marriage benefits society in many ways, not only by promoting mutuality and fidelity, but also by acknowledging an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation.”
The underlying complimentary nature of two people does not come from one having a vagina and the other a penis, it comes from their personalities. Teh mechanics of it all is, just window dressing. If the “possibility of procreation” is so important, why isn’t the church trying to stop infirtile couples from marrying? After all, an infirtile couple, in their prospects of having children with no outside intervention, are no different to a same-sex couples.
If the cry that teh gays marrying will de-value marriage for everyone else isn’t enough, then fall back on history…
“The canons of the Church of England are part of the law of England and have been continuously since the reformation of Henry VIII,” said one senior figure.
so…?
“Is it possible to have the law of the Church of England saying something different to the law of England? The question is how long we can sustain that.
Yes. Yes it is possible. In fact it is very possible for the church to say one thing and the law of the land say another. I’d say that it is not only possible, but desirable.
“It raises the sort of problems that no one has had to address before.”
It raises all sort of problems for the church that no one in the church has had to address before. Everyone else doesn’t actually give a fuck.
He added: “I do believe that the European Court could make it impossible for Church of England to go on having the role that it has got at the moment in relation to conducting marriage on behalf of the state.”
What is the problem? You don’t get hordes on Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jehovas’ Witnesses and happy-fucking-clappers dragging cases through the European courts just because they have to make a stop at the register office on the way back from their temple to make their weddings legal.
The distinction would become “politically unsustainable”, the legal paper adds, while also calling into question whether heterosexual couples might also press for the right to have civil partnerships.
Maybe we could have a discussion about whether civil marraiges should be called civil marriages or civil partnerships, without the need for having someones choice of parter deciding on the terminology. Does it really matter what it’s called, as long as it’s called the same for everyone?
More fundamentally, it argues, the new distinction would call into question the Church of England’s place as part of the state both nationally and locally.
Ah, “more fundamentally”. Is this all a smokescreen for what the church is really worried about? With the seperation of canon and the law of the land, the church would lose it’s unearned privilege of power, and we all know those in positions of power hate to lose it.
The Bishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is showing what a dick he is. Again.
The Dr is trying to say what a travesty gay marriage will be but doesn’t quite make any decent arguement against it, as expected.
Dr Sentamu writes that homosexual couples should enjoy complete equality with heterosexuals but argues that this does not mean redefining marriage.
Not quite complete equality, then.
He explains: “Up to now, the only reason I have been given for a desire to redefine marriage to embrace same-sex relationships is that it meets an emotional need of some same-sex couples (only some, as I have forcefully been led to believe some reject the concept of marriage altogether).
And what is wrong with that? Marriage meets an emotional need in everybody Nobody needs to get married. Unmarried couples can do everything married couples can, it is only the state and the church that makes people want to get marrried by giving them certain rights. Why shouldn’t gay couples that want to be together for ever have those same rights?
Just because some gay people reject marriage should not be a reason to deny those rights to those that do want to get married. There are lots of heterosexual couple that reject marriage as well. By the bishops’ logic we should remove the rights and privileges of marriage from heterosexual marriage.
This little bit of bollox is trying to clear up his views from an interview he did for the Telegraph in January.
“Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman,” says Dr Sentamu. “I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just [change it] overnight, no matter how powerful you are.
So… If it’s not the role of the state to define marriage, then I wonder who’s job, the bishop, thinks it is? It wouldn’t be the church’s, would it? As for history and tradition, there’s plenty of evidence that the definition has been rather fluid. Here’s George Monbiot on it for starters.
“We’ve seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way.
This appeal to try and link homosexual rights to the whims of a dictator is just a load of wank. For a start, we don’t live in a dictatorship, and by no stretch of the imagination is it going to turn in one anytime some. It’s just bollox to scare people into thinking if we let the gays marry, the end of the world will soon follow.
Marriage is just a word. If homosexual couples have the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples then what is the fucking problem in calling both statuses ‘marriage’?
Once again, the church is in fear of it’s privileged position of power ond control, and it doesn’t like it.
