Now, I have to put this in my own words, but as far as I can understand it, the Church of Wales has recently been bumping it's gums over the knotty issue of gay marriage.
Over the entire country the Welsh Church dioceses have been " consulting" with their Deaneries, Parishes and with individuals and Bishop Gregory, (who looks a bit like Richard Griffith from the Harry Potter movies) has given his report on the findings from this area.
It makes for an interesting and rather ambiguous read.
As far as I can see, the Welsh Church is banging on whether to accept gay marriage or not. Ok it has put out feelers towards the patronising and second class offer to bless civil ceremonies in Church ( that's big of them! ) but the general thrust of the discussion is centred around the whole concept of "marriage"
The Bishop recieved two Deanery responses, ten Parish responses and only 15 personal responses and although his exploration of this feedback looked remarkable thorough, I think he and the Church in Wales has missed the point.
GAY MARRIAGE is now the LAW OF THE LAND...plain and simple....and in law I am now a married person.....I have the paperwork , just like any other married person to prove it. The Church HAS to change if it is to survive. If a popular Bishop recieves just fifteen personal responses to this debate , doesn't that tell him something?
Most people are just not arsed with the whole thing....bleeding hell you would get more resonse about changing the colour of the rubbish bins than you would about the Church allowing two poofs to kiss down the aisle......apathy is a big leveller
So Bishop Gregory get real eh?.....Change with the times me old son.......you now use facebook and twitter and you seem like a pretty likable old guy......time to move on to worry about bigger things eh?
Gay is sooooo last season anyway
Link to Bishop Gregory's findings
IT is the law of the land of course so isn't the Church in Wales (including Chris's own vicar) guilty of discrimination by refusing the acknowledge that fact? It makes me very angry. People have been sued for refusing to let gay people stay at their B&Bs but still the church can do as it likes.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest, how many people really care what the church thinks? Any organisation whos doctrine is 2000 years out of date deserves to be ignored. As you say, the law of the land is what counts.
ReplyDeleteWell said.totally agree
DeleteI love your raised middle finger regards law, John!
ReplyDeleteMy son's generation just don't care about our middle-aged angsting very much. "Don't like gay marriage? Well don't have one then," is their response. People complain about kids of today but I think they are pretty switched on.
In Australia marriage equality is the subject of every party/barbeque discussion. It's not law here yet.
It will be though...to be sure?
DeleteI glaze over when I hear terms like deaneries, dioceses, bishops etc. I don't have much of an idea of the hierarchy of the church. Some people don't like change of any sort whether it be accepting gay marriage or (as you say) changing the colour of the rubbish bins. I know what would raise the bigger debate where I live!
ReplyDeletewhilst we are waiting for the supreme court's verdict in our country, the religious freaks are screaming that they are willing to die to disobey same-sex marriage laws. GO AHEAD AND DIE THEN! the fewer h8ers in the world, the better off we all will be.
ReplyDeleteyou and the prof are MARRIED and no religious institution can tell you you are NOT.
Still living in Catholic land here... They are positively medieval! No consultation here any time soon. When did they ever follow the law of the land? I pretty much regret getting married in a church these days. I was 22. These days, I wouldn't. We have civil marriages for everyone now - that would be the kind I'd get.
ReplyDeleteSadly, two of my friends are getting divorced now - the first gay divorce I know of. But I will cheer that right all the way to the end - another right they would not have, even if they were allowed to get married in the Catholic church.
I will stop rambling now.
The whole thing is really all about control by defining what they consider to be good behavior and bad behavior. Now the legal authority is re-qualifying their definitions. They will need to evolve or slowly die off.
ReplyDeleteLike the dinosaurs
DeleteThe C of E is currently debating over the sex of God. How many angels you can fit on a pinhead is almost as last year as gay marriage on the other side of the estuary.
ReplyDeleteTotally avoiding the the subject for no good reason, wasn't Griffiths just great in Pie in the Sky. I really liked that show. Gay marriage may happen sooner in Australia than I thought when I made a comment when you both married. The partner asked me the other day if I had thought about it and as per usual, I asked him did he have someone in mind to marry? It was interesting that he even brought it up in a serious manner. His argument being that it would save complications over wills. My answer was, we need to have very good wills.
ReplyDeleteAs Anne Marie suggests, things are very interesting in the US at the moment.
Far away here in Massachusetts, I had never heard of the Diocese of St. Asaph. It puts me in mind of the acronym ASAP, except in this case his bishopness seems to be operating under the auspices of As Soon As Possible. . . However.
ReplyDeleteNo one pays much attention to their ramblings and ravings anyway John. The government has sanctioned gay marriage and that's what matters.
ReplyDeletePerfectly put. Now if we can just drag Australia a bit further into the land of logic and light I will be happy.
ReplyDeleteBigots may always be among us. The hell with them.
ReplyDeleteI would have written Richard Griffith from Withnail and I, but otherwise I agree with you 100%.
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ReplyDeleteJust one of several things that get my goat is that the Churches - pretty well ALL of them, but most especially that led by Papa Frankie - act as though everyone else takes them seriously and adjust their lives accordingly. Well it's true that some do, but the huge majority don't give a flying f*ck what they think and do NOT change their lives to comply. Trouble is, Churches, spuriously parading their 'superior' moral authority and wisdom (hah!), are aided by timid politicians who, anxious not to lose what they regard as key support, also act as though they think what the churches say matters, and allow them influence far exceeding their worth and positive contribution to modern society. And that is illustrated precisely by the subject of equal marriage.
ReplyDeleteBtw: As I have for most of my life I still read a chapter of the Bible, as well as a page of The Koran (in various translations), every single day. I'm ever so grateful to both sources in initially converting me to, and latterly daily reinforcing, my 'belief' in atheism.
Signed: A one-time devout R.C.
Well said.
DeleteI love Raybeard's response. It was my reading of the Bible at an absurdly young age which prompted me to forego any more belief in any churchy institution which used that book as a guideline.
ReplyDeleteYou are married. Hell, even in the state of Florida in the USA you could get married and when that became legal, I knew that somehow the battle was over, no matter how long it takes the rest of the world to catch up.
I'm grateful for your positive reaction to my comment, but isn't it strange that churches advise regular and frequent readings of 'Holy Scripture' when, if one starts thinking about what one reads it all falls to pieces? What they'd prefer is for us to read but not question, argue or challenge it, in other words, to have a pre-ordained view of it all being true.
DeleteI think that J.C. may well have been a 'good' man (yes, I think he almost certainly DID exist) but I'd argue that he was probably also delusional. Just take one of scores of events in the Gospels - telling his disciples "I say unto you - if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed (presumably tiny), ye shall say unto this mountain ' Remove hence and it shall remove; and NOTHING shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20) How many people in humankind's entire history have been able to even, say, make an inconveniently-placed tree dislodge itself through 'belief', let alone move a mountain? I'd suggest not a one. Every single person there ever was has therefore lacked faith, it then follows. Or weren't we supposed to take the words literally? My case rests.
Magic mushrooms?....
DeleteWanda, id love to get drunk with you
DeleteWe shall not have 'won' the battle John until it does not occur to anyone to even mention that a) a married couple are both the same sex, b) that a person is male or female rather than just a person with whatever sex they wish to be and c) the colour of a person's skin is not of interest.
ReplyDeleteThat, sadly, will not be in our lifetime or that of our children I fear.
Yeah, I'd tell the church to start focusing on domestic abuse and pedophilia. And animal neglect and road rage! Anyhoo, please pop over to my site tomorrow to see our new baby! Yo'll relate, I know. xx
ReplyDeleteMy views on religion start with it's been responsible for human misery than any other social institution, so predictably I don't pay attention to their mutterings about marriage, sex or anything.
ReplyDeleteBut I did find funny the Australian hetro couple who vowed to get divorced if gay marriage becomes legal there. Probably wouldn't have lasted anyway, so they own a thank you to gays, right?
Cheers John.
When you look at the divorce rates in the Western world these days, surely all that's important is that two people are happy together x
ReplyDeleteLove your post title. It basically is a generational thing. The younger one doesn't really care about the morals of the older ones. Us oldsters are good for something I suppose. Maybe just to tell the others that it's beating a dead horse to continue to deny rights to people because of our outdated belief system.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I am faithless and never was against abortion or gay marriage, etc. etc.
DeleteA bit late to even think about that, eh, vicar?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised this is even a debate at this point!
ReplyDeleteMarriage is fucking boring.
ReplyDeleteYes, but supposing you are a person of faith, that you are a practicing Christian, and that the Anglican Church has some importance to you and indeed you have an appointed role within it. Someone like the Prof perhaps. The stance the Church takes might then be considered relevant and not so readily dismissed however much you want it to change.
ReplyDeleteIndeed philip...... I subscribe to the view
DeleteWhy would I want to be part of a group that doesnt want me as a member?
Waiting for the Supreme Court to rule here in the west side of the Atlantic. I don't expect many of the church's to be accepting, that is their problem.
ReplyDeleteWe dont want to be like anyone
ReplyDeleteWe just want to be TREATED the same
I live in a US state where gay marriage is legal and has been for some time now. When I was discussing the church aspect with a friend, she being an avid churchgoer and against gay marriage, I told her that in the US, marriage is a civil ceremony first. You need a marriage licence in order to be married, and any justice of the peace can perform the ceremony, but you don't need a church wedding to be married. Similarly, if you perform a church wedding without the licence supplied by the state, then you are not legally married. So, this is a render unto Cesar that which is Cesar's sort of thing to me.
ReplyDeleteChurches can decide whether they wish to bless gay marriages and provide wedding services, and where I live, some do and some don't.
Megan, i hate the way that the welsh church may deem it ok to bless civil partnerships but not sanction marriage!
DeleteHypocrites
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ReplyDeleteSol
DeleteThe church, in my view point can be summed up thus
" too much thinking, not a lot doing"
I don't feel any degree of disapproval towards gay marriage , it probably has just as much chance of sucess as any other marriage, let the haters hate .
ReplyDeleteAnd who really cares and/or needs their approval in the first place?
ReplyDeleteNot I.
Most churches will soon disappear anyway due to lack if interest on the part of the enlightened.
How I wish gay marriage was sanctioned here. Soon I hope. V soon.
ReplyDeleteIt will x
DeleteI just hate the fact that there needs to be discussions and debates about it….. it should be as ' ordinary ' as straight marriages and people should be left to get on with it…. AND, it's a shame that you need to write posts like this, isn't it John ?
ReplyDeleteThe Church needs to move with the times. XXXX
Well said that gal x
DeleteYes, Jacqueline is right! The same is true on the priesthood debate... New Zealand has had "women priests" as opposed to "priests" for aeons and my line always was that until we had as many stupid/mediocre women in the priesthood as men, we didn't have equality! In the 'early days' the quality of the women who made it to ordination was so much higher than that of the men of the time.... Now, there's equality!!
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