Should 'Marriage' be re-defined

[MrGongGong]

Did I miss something ?
Is the proposal to make gay marriage compulsory for all Catholics ? or even make it compulsory for churches to conduct gay weddings ?

If not then they really should shut up about it as it really is none of their business.

[scottycelt]

Oh he is a Head of State, all right , Mr GG ... do try and keep up.

As for the Tories and David Cameron in particular I really do wonder whether they believe all this stuff about 'gay' marriage themselves.

It has the distinct whiff of Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats ... all part of the 'secret' Coalition agreement, I strongly suspect.

[french frank]

He is as much a real "head of state" as Paisley is a real "doctor"

Oh, the Pope is a Head of State all right. No question. Vatican City is a sovereign city-state, of which the Pope is the head.

Strange - we live in an age when people increasingly believe that 'marriage' (define it as you will) is irrelevant to their (a-religious?) lives...

[John Skelton]

when he popped over to do few gigs for your lot a couple of years ago, scotty!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TJPLRdWeyE

[amateur51]

Oh, the Pope is a Head of State all right. No question. Vatican City is a sovereign city-state, of which the Pope is the head.

Strange - we live in an age when people increasingly believe that 'marriage' (define it as you will) is irrelevant to their (a-religious?) lives...

From wiki: 'Vatican City was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of the Holy See and by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy.;

Benito Mussolini was co-creator of the Vatican City State. General Franco was protector of the Catholic Church in Spain. Is there a pattern emerging here?

[amateur51]

Thank you, ams , although I don't feel all that ablaze this morning (bit of a dodgy back).

Sorry to hear about your back, John Skelton. Have you ever tried The Alexander Technique? Easily learned & practised once you know how, no drugs, no special equipment, non-invasive, just a hard flat floor and some concentrated breathing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_technique

[scottycelt]

From wiki: 'Vatican City was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of the Holy See and by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy.;

Benito Mussolini was co-creator of the Vatican City State. General Franco was protector of the Catholic Church in Spain. Is there a pattern emerging here?

Now here are some of the facts ...

Mussolini boasted that the Concordat would 'bury the church'. He was of course a secular fascist () and as far as he was concerned the Church got in the road of his cunning plans for Italy. The Church benefited from the agreement by making it legally independent from the Fascist State. As we are supposed to be discussing the nature of marriage there is an interesting little piece about the Concordat (also in Wikipedia, which Ams strangely omitted to mention) which goes thus:

<Violations

Italy's anti-Jewish laws of 1938 prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews, including Catholics. The Vatican viewed this as a violation of the Concordat, which gave the church the sole right to regulate marriages involving Catholics.[2] Article 34 of the Concordat also had specified that marriages performed by the Catholic Church would always be considered valid by civil authorities.[3] The Vatican understood this to include Matrimony between non-Aryan Catholics or between one Aryan and a non-Aryan.>

So there we see the sort of irresolvable moral tensions between Church and State that led to the Treaty in the first place!

As for Franco Spain, if your churches are being burned down, priests murdered and nuns raped by marauding communist and anarchist thugs, is it any wonder that assistance is accepted from any quarter where it is willingly offered? Even the Church has to come to terms with reality and make the least worst of a truly horrible situation.

[MrGongGong]

Now here are some of the facts ....................


Even the Church has to come to terms with reality and make the least worst of a truly horrible situation.

Since WHEN have facts had anything to do with the Catholic church ? I guess if you were one of it's victims then the facts of how the abuse has been systematically covered up MIGHT be worth shouting about ?

and maybe the church should "come to terms with reality" and mind it's own business

Given the history its more than a little outrageous for the blokes in the frocks to think that they have ANY entitlement to make judgements about how the rest of us run our lives

Peter Tatchell for archbishop ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not sure how to break this to you, but it's not unknown for gay people to marry people of the opposite sex for a whole host of reasons. Are you saying they should be forcibly divorced?

Wasn't Siegfried Wagner thought to be such a person?

[scottycelt]

Is that your unique and idiosyncratic way of saying that you are fully in favour of 'gay' marriage being made legal in the UK, Mr GG ... ?

[John Skelton]

On the subject of Peter Tatchell:

"The Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Judaism want to perform same-sex marriages. The current law says they can't.

This is not only homophobic but also an attack on religious freedom. While no religious body should be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, those that want to conduct them should be free to do so."

What is unreasonable about that?

[Ferretfancy]

scottycelt
Geoffrey Robertson's book The Case of the Pope makes it perfectly clear that the Vatican is not a sovereign state in any true meaning of the word. The Vatican's concordat with Mussolini which among other things gave the church sole responsibility for the control of all Italian schools, was a clever dodge by the dictator which has no status in International Law.Italian police have full powers within Vatican City, and employees pay Italian taxes.Apart from his Swiss Guards the Pope has no army. Furthermore, the Vatican has no seat at the UN, but is allowed to attend as an observer.
The Pope was treated courteously when he last visited Britain, but he is not a Head of State, and is not recognised as such.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Isn't the deepest layer of this debate simply about the meaning of the word 'marriage', even before we get to religious positions on it? My 1972 Chambers (oops, probably time I bought a new one) states "the ceremony, act, or committed conract by which a man and a woman become husband and wife: the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife...a close union (fig.)[.]

Wiki allows a little more scope for homeosexual marriage:"Marriage (also called matrimony or wedlock) is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but is usually an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged. Such a union is often formalized via a wedding ceremony. Many cultures limit marriage to two persons of the opposite sex, but some allow forms of polygamous marriage, and some recognize same-sex marriage. In some conservative cultures, marriage is recommended or compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity" [my emphasis].

Nailing my colours to the mast, I have no issues with homosexuality, the recognition of civil partnerships, etc etc. But to call the public entry into a committed homosexual relationship a marriage now, in the UK, is surely to redefine the word. Usually such dictionary redefinitions come about over many years through a change in popular usage, not by a sudden announcement from on high which is what seems to be being called for at the moment.

Wouldn't it be better to wait and see if the wider society comes to accept that lasting homosexual relationships should be called 'marriages' rather than seeking to impose this?

[french frank]

"The Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Judaism want to perform same-sex marriages. The current law says they can't.

This is not only homophobic but also an attack on religious freedom. While no religious body should be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, those that want to conduct them should be free to do so."

What is unreasonable about that?

Nothing. In which case, I would recommend that churches which do not wish to perform such marriages should call their matrimonial ceremony confarreation (a religious ceremony for members of that particular church) rather than marriage. If the law was changed to permit same-sex marriage, would that settle the matter?

I'm not sure what the verb would be. Confarreate? (It does imply that a spelt loaf has to be consumed during the ceremony)

[scottycelt]

Geoffrey Robertson's book The Case of the Pope makes it perfectly clear ... The Pope was treated courteously when he last visited Britain ....

Certainly not by Mr Geoffrey Robertson QC ... his aggressive discourtesy to an official visiting Head of State, by being a leading member of a deservedly damp-squib of a street protest against the visit, was plainly apparent to everyone watching their TV screens at the time.

However, the Pope was certainly treated most courteously by those who really matter on such State occasions, and by all accounts was greatly moved both by that and the huge welcome he received from cheering crowds on his tours.

As for one of your other somewhat pedantic points, Comrade Stalin naively believed that the Pope doesn't head any sort of army, as well ...