Sod equality, it’s dis-establishment the church frets about

June 12th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

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.

Should the monarchy be abolished? How about a cost analysis first, eh?

June 5th, 2012 § 4 comments § permalink

So, that’s it for another 10 years, when we’ll all be waving the Union Flag at the Queens’ platinum jubilee.

As expected there’s been the republicans calling the monarchy to be abolished. Not many in the mainstream, but then there wouldn’t be, would there? I’ve seen a bit of cynicism, ok, a lot of cynicism, on blogs and Twitter but then that’s probably just the circles I move in.

But Should we get rid of Her Maj and install an elected head of state?

To decide that, we need to know what the hell she does in the first place, apart from wave at assorted crowds and chop peoples heads off. Sorry, I’m thinking of a different queen, aren’t I?

All the reasons I’ve heard for keeping the monarchy, or Queen Elizabeth specifically are:

  • She’s a good role model on how to behave.
  • The monarchy are good for tourism.
  • She brings stability to the country.
  • The queen does so much for the country

Then the reasons I’ve heard for abolishing the monarchy:

  • It is undemocratic to have an elected head of state.
  • err…
  • that’s it.

So, the queen is a good role model. So are my parents. So are my in-laws. So are thousands of other people and families across the land. Why should one person or family be put on such a pedestal ahead of anyother because of history and birth?

The monarchy may be good for tourism, but we have fuck loads of history to lean back on and sell to the tourists. Do we really need an actual monarchy now? The amount of tourist that come here really expecting to see the queen are so low as to be virtually nil. Tourists come to see the palaces, the jewels, the castles. They’re not going to go away just because we decide to elect a head of state. We could still have guards at Windsor castle and Buckingham Palace for the tourists’ photo ops and it would still cost a fuck of a lot less that it does now.

The Queen, I’ve heard, brings stability. Just like she supposedly does so much for the country. Some specifics would be nice, but no one I’ve heard ever seems to go into specifics. For the ordinary man in the street, the queen speaks to him once a year at christmas and opens parliament where she is given a script to read from. Would we be worse off with out that?

The queen also speaks at dinners and banquets, maybe I haven’t been paying attention but those speeches don’t seem to have had much of an affect on me either. Those speeches could be delivered by any head of state, elected or otherwise.

The Queen doesn’t have any political power apart from one – then ability to dissolve parliament and that isn’t going to happen, is it?

Sounds to me like we would get along fine without a monarchy. Let’s get democratic and elect a head of state instead. One drawback to that would be, what if we, as a nation, elected Tony Blair? David Cameron would probably expect to be elected as head too. After all, he did get elected Prime Minister (sort of) so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

But if we don’t need the queen because she does bugger all, do we need a president instead?

What we need to do is find out how much value the queen and the monarchy in general add to the country. Anyone know? If the monarchy bring in more cash than they cost, then fuck it, lets keep them. Once they start costing more than they bring in, then we cut our losses and fuck them off out of it.

Before we get to the stage of electing a head of state, there needs to be a debate about what they would actually be for? What purpose would they serve. If they’re just a replacement for the queen with no political power, then fuck it, We’ll be ok without, thank you very much. If their role will be different to the current monarchs’ and have at least some political power, then it will be quite a big thing to do as it will impact on the whole political landscape.

For the republicans, this is what they need to do. Start a discussion on what the monarchs replacement would be and do, not just say the royals need to go.

It’s all *his* fault

June 3rd, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Poor Jeremy Hunt. Poor David Cameron. All this fuss about Murdoch, BSkyB and Hunt’s favouritism is not Hunts’ fault. It’s all the fault of Vince Cable

The Prime Minister yesterday blamed Mr Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, for putting him in a position of having to make that appointment.

Aww, if only Vince had get his big mouth shut and not got stung expressing his personal opinion to undercover Telegraph journalists, Hunt wouldn’t be getting drawn over the hot coals for not keeping his big mouth shut to the Murdochs.

Lifes a bitch, ain’t it?

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