It's not for me, but it should be for those who want it

[eumelia]

Marriage?

Ha!

Regardless as to your opinion about marriage as an institution, it exists, it has existed for thousands of years, very likely it will not be chucked away any time soon.

But you know what? It has changed. From being a contract of ownership it's now a contract of partnership - ideally speaking that it and that's the assumption I'm going with at this point in time, because that's what the, erm, struggle for marriage equality for same-sex couples over the world is about.

(I don't get it, I think it's counter productive to the notion of freedom, but hey, the choice should be out there)

The BBC have this truly marvelous article out titled: Gay church 'marriages' set to get the go-ahead.
The scare 'quotes' are part of the title I shit you not. Really BBC? Really? You're implying that marriage between gay people isn't real? I'd be shocked and appalled if it weren't status quo with the way they same sex partnerships are treated in the media and under the law as a rule.

I wasn't planning on reading through this article, because it's not my country and I don't find the struggle for marriage to be of great import when it comes to QUILTBAG rights the world over. But I can't fucking ignore institutionalised homophobia, especially when it's white washed by human rights discourse.

I quote the BBC article:

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, gave the news a guarded welcome.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show he "believes in a liberal democracy, and actually wants equality with everybody" but did not want churches to be told what to do.

"You mustn't have rights that trump other rights," he added.

Hello Double Standards! Hello Hypocrisy!

Remember how I said marriage has changed over time and all that? You know what else needs to change and is long over-do for an over haul?
Religion.
Period.

As an aside, it is my personal belief that religion, does and has done more harm than good, over all, where ever it has a foot hold, that is, every where. I don't begrudge people's belief in a higher power and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong in the implausible.

I don't really understand why QUITLBAG people would want to continue to put their faith in an institution that has time and time again conceived us to be deviant and sub-human, but it should be a choice available to them. Why? Because part of being an institution that lives and believe in, as the Archbishop of York says he does, in liberal democracy and equality for all, then saying that the Church trumps that and can close its gates in the face of its believers simply because of people are uncomfortable with queers... well then.

Suck it up.

It's not simple, it's not easy, but religion, as I understand it, is there to be a go between, between god and the people who worship god? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Religion is part of a culture, culture changes, and you can bet that the religion of 100, 500, 1000 years ago does not resemble the religion of today, certainly not in industrialised countries and nations.

So, BBC, when you ask there, at the bottom of your article:
Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry in church? Would you be affected by this proposal?
There's another implication there. That people in same-sex relationships are not the ones being asked, when they're the ones who actually are affected by this decision. The mere fact that this you are framing this as a debate is homophobic, because yes, it is quite obvious that if Britain was in fact interested in equalising marriage between heterosexual unions and homosexual unions they would pass the law, no questions asked, and any religious institutions that refused to marry two men or two women to each other would be fucking penalised for discriminatory behaviour!

As some churches are already threatening:

The [Sunday Telegraph] says the Church of England has already said it will not allow any of its churches to be used for civil partnership ceremonies.

The legislation would also cover synagogues and mosques although homosexuality is forbidden under Islam.

It's so not just Islam you moronic islamophobic racists!

The Roman Catholic Church has long held that homosexuality is a "deviation" and is not expected to agree to same-sex ceremonies.

As I said, pass the law and penalise any institution and organisations that denies gay people the rights afforded to straight people. I can't think of anything that will get these places to "see the light" faster that either cutting their funds or fining them so much, they'll need same sex couples just to make sure ends meet.

Lucky them Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Jews have already wised up!

Good luck to you my UK Sibs, you're going to need it.

Comments

[silveradept]

I agree with the framing being awful and the need for religions to modernize, but I'm going to say that religion has not primarily been about being an intercessor between the humans and the gods. Considering religion likely sprung out of a desire to explain unexplained natural phenomena (doot do, dee do do), it probably has always been oriented toward figuring out why the gods are talking to us in such ways and what we can do to avoid being struck dead, having our crops wiped out in pestilence, not being able to hunt successfully, and not getting killed or enslaved by someone else in battle. Thus, it's always been about morality and decreeing that certain things make the gods happy and others make them unhappy and likely to smite.

That's what makes them feel like they should be exempted from any of the laws of men that they don't like - they have the gods talking to them, so we should be listening, not telling them to get with the times.

[eumelia]

Yes, the role of religion as moral guide and all, is all very well, but not when it continues to arbitrarily dehumanise other people, when they/we grew up in that religion, it's hypocritical and unethical on the human level and honestly by that logic, the gods wouldn't have allowed us to evolve and develop technologically thus enabling different identities to develop over history.

[silveradept]

There are a few religions that are about that kind of Luddism. I agree that religion shouldn't be used to dehumanize people, but those people also think they're the special children of God and are allowed to dismiss everyone else, too. It's a mess, and bringing them in line with the times would hopefully help to dispel some of the things that make it that kind of a mess.

[quesrahsrah]

Word.
I hate the BBC for their covering homophobia with 'debate'. When Elton John and his partner adopted, they brought on the leader of Christian Voice to provide 'balance' to the story. Christian Voice is a fundimentalist group whose leader beat his wife citing the Bible as his excuse and has called out in favour of the executions in Uganda. Yeah. Balance.

[eumelia]

I remember.

What is with the BBC?

[pineapplechild]

Leveraging financial penalties against churches if they don't comply with state law really sticks in my craw, probably somewhat because I'm American,and probably a lot more because I'm Christian (albeit one who sees this whole religion thing being a lot more about the personal relationship between a person and their god/gods/universe being(s)).
I've always been much more for the separation of the civil implications of marriage from the religious. Married in the church vs. married in the state.

Reading the article, it sounds like I may be missing a key item in the understanding of British marriage law, but it sounds like the argument is over making gay marriage ceremonies conducted in a church as legally binding as straight ones, instead of making them stand up before a judge. Not, as I got from your post on the first go through, forcing them to do so.

Not quite sure how it goes in the UK, but at least in the US, churches have a lot of leeway over what kind of marriages get preformed in their institution. Some churches require, for instance, that both members be officially part of their branch, or undergo religious counseling before the marriage to make sure that the two are "ready" for marriage. I would see the ability to refuse to marry a queer couple as an extension of that. (If a church does not receive money from the government, they can also refuse to marry on racial grounds, to my understanding, in the US.)

Anyway, most of that isn't relevant because it's not UK-based, but the main point: this sounds like a good thing, raising the current UK-wide ban on conducting civil partnerships in any religious institution, even if the religion in question permits it. (Such as those Quakers mentioned.) And I dislike the idea of forcing marriages, but I'm biased, even if the particular church I attend does conduct services for queer couples. Also, the shock quotes are DEEPLY ANNOYING and Beeb, I would have thought better of you.

[eumelia]

I've been informed that under UK law, same sex unions (which are not marriages, thus the "scare quotes" are in fact mockery quotes, because the marriage isn't really a marriage *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*) cannot be conducted in religious institutions even if the religious institution (the Quaker and Jewish ones mentioned) want to perform the services.

So that's a lot of bad reporting going on, with a big homophobic slant.

I see no problem taking away or giving monetary benefits to institutions that do badly or well with regards to treating people like human beings, which includes not excluding members of the religion due to sexuality. I think religion needs to be brought up to date, if it needs to be done kicking and screaming then so be it. An institution is made up of people, there's no reason certain people should be able to exclude others from a place of worship when in any other institution or work place it would be slammed for defamation and discrimination.

[kerrypolka]

I've been informed that under UK law, same sex unions (which are not marriages, thus the "scare quotes" are in fact mockery quotes, because the marriage isn't really a marriage *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*) cannot be conducted in religious institutions even if the religious institution (the Quaker and Jewish ones mentioned) want to perform the services.

Yes, this is what's going on. It's incredibly frustrating because, as you say, it doesn't matter how progressive the religious organisation is, they are banned from performing gay weddings in them. The only people who are being "forced" to do anything are the progressive communities that are being forced to turn away gay partners.

[quesrahsrah]

Are civil parnterships basically equal to civil marriages then? That's how I've always understood it

[kerrypolka]

To be honest I'm not exactly sure. There was a lot of noise made in the service at my heterosexual register office wedding about how "the institution of marriage is between ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN" which I thought was odd at the time, but mentally filed away under anti-polygamy until a queer friend pointed out it was more likely good old homophobia.

I think all civil partnership ceremonies are prohibited from using religious imagery, symbols, music, etc. Our register office wedding also had this ban, but we had the possibility of doing it in a synagogue*, whereas queer people don't have that option. So there's currently no way to have a religious same-sex commitment ceremony with any legal meaning.

*I mean, we probably couldn't have done it in a synagogue because my husband isn't Jewish, but that has nothing to do with UK law, only the diaspora Jewish community being weird and hyperprotective about status.

[lilacsigil]

I think religious institutions should be basically left alone to discriminate as they wish; they also shouldn't receive tax breaks, be involved in government services, receive any funding for their schools, or have their marriages be more important than civil ones. If a marriage conveys civil benefits (which it doesn't within Australia, at least) it should be part of government, not religion.

[eumelia]

Would that be so! I'm all for that and think it's ideal, but alas, religion isn't something we'll see the back of for a very long time, or ever. So, religious institutions should, at the very least, be required to treat all people as any other public institution, with dignity and without discrimination, or be penalised for it as other institutions would be.

Not that that's a huge step forward, seeing as how non-religious/secular institutions treat people who are not considered "human" enough, but at least religion wouldn't be able to hide behind the immunity it lives under at the moment.

[geekosaur]

Before you hyperventilate too much: the BBC always scare-quotes what they consider to be a keyword in a headline. Go back and look at a list of headlines, you'll find that all of them have a scare-quoted word (and what makes them quote-worthy isn't always obvious). But in this case, "marriage" is the obvious single key word.

I also have trouble twisting Korzybski far enough to justify their choice of punctuation, but it's what they do.