The Catholic Church on Gay Marriage

[miss_s_b]

There's an article in the Grauniad in which Cardinal Keith O'Brien describes the plans to equalise marriage rights as madness, and lays into them in various other ways. I'm just going to post my reactions here. It is possible that if your belief system differs from mine, you might find this offensive. I figure that given how offensive I find the Cardinal's bigotry, this is acceptable collateral damage. Anyway here's my reactions to what he says:

• Gay marriage is a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right - if it was a universally accepted human right, gay people would already be able to marry. That's what universal means. The fact that gay people can't marry means that it's NOT universal, and this is what we're trying to fix.


• all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples - this is a flat lie.


• Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father. - ah! So not only are The Gays evil, but so are single mothers. Nice! And since when is marriage all about the children anyway? There are many, many childless het couples who are childless because they want to be. They marry because they LOVE EACH OTHER, not because they want to pump out babies.


• Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage, if they pledge their fidelity to one another? - indeed, why not?


• Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that “no one will be forced to keep a slave”. - yes, because allowing people who love each other to get married is exactly the same as slavery.


• changing the definition of marriage is trying to redefine reality - yes, because a man who spends most of his time trying to persuade other people to talk to his imaginary friend, and that we should all do what his imaginary friend says, has SUCH a grasp on reality.


• Objecting to gay marriage risks one being labelled an intolerant bigot - that's because one IS an intolerant bigot, Keith.

Seriously, what is these people's problem? How in the name of Cthulhu does it hurt existing marriages if other people are allowed to get married too? Surely it strengthens the institution of marriage if more people can do it? Did all this bollocks get spouted about mixed race marriages? I bet it did. And I further bet that Cardinal Keith wouldn't dare say that about mixed race marriages now, and possibly even thinks that such racist thinking is wrong. There's a clue in that as to why people now think your position is bigoted, Keith.

The only reason for wishing to deny the right of marriage to anyone other than one man one woman couples is because you think it's a badge of honour which should only be granted to people you approve of. That's the very definition of bigotry, Keith, you fuckwit.

Comments

[assassinscloak]

I just can't get my head around the slavery analogy.

[miss_s_b]

This is his explanation for why it's not acceptable to allow gay people to marry but not force churches to marry them.

[ginasketch]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I left the Catholic Church 16 years ago and became an atheist.

[gominokouhai]

O'Brien is a fuckwit, even by the usual standards of organized religion. He basically owns the Scottish parliament and seems to be the single most significant force preventing Scottish politics from actually being liberal or progressive. I can't wait until the bastard dies and we can get his medieval bigotry out of contemporary discourse.

[ginasketch]

I'll share a bottle of champagne with you.

[miss_s_b]

YAY! Let's organise a party!

[drunkwriter]

I'd never heard of him before this weekend, but I think I'll join the deathparty. Would be sweet if he could drop off the perch the same day as Thatcher, for maximum champagne deployment.

[rhythmaning]

Can I come?

[jo]

Canada went through all of this back in 2004, and I have to admit that reading these various anti-SSM columns in various UK media (I read everything from the Guardian to ConservativeHome) is the biggest case of déjà vu for me. Like I'm caught in some weird time warp.

[miss_s_b]

They will lose. That's why they're getting so strident; they know they're going to lose.

[mcgillianaire]

Heh funny you should mention that. I was living in Canada then and now that I'm in the UK, I feel like I'm caught in that weird deja vu time warp!

As for the original post, couldn't agree more. And you're dead right, the voices are getting louder and desperate because they know the game's up. The *sanctity* of marriage is the one last thing they still had control over. It's interesting how the people usually screaming loudest against Islamic extremism are also to a large extent the ones who support the Church's stand on SSM. People often make the case that Christianity is more enlightened than the practice of other religions, but the truth is that like conservatives, they rarely (if ever) initiate change. On all the major issues, they're always behind the eight-ball and playing catch up with the law/common sense/the way things should've always been. The only difference between Christianity and other religions like Islam and Hinduism is that, there are fewer social anachronisms to break down. But we all know it's not the Church that's going to reform themselves. Your reference to mixed-marriage is all the more pertinent.

[magister]

I shall just quote a short passage from his original Telegraph article.

If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage, if they pledge their fidelity to one another? If marriage is simply about adults who love each other, on what basis can three adults who love each other be prevented from marrying?

Well, quite. So, I trust we have your support then, Keefy?

[doccy]

Well, I say Hurrah :D

[miss_s_b]

I'd certainly approve of the two men and one woman scenario that the Cardinal so helpfully suggests.

[magister]

I know, dear, I know. <3

[nadriel]

I think it's disgusting, and continue to fail to understand how people who act like this can consider themselves Christians :-(.

[rhythmaning]

Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.

I was particularly confused by O'brien's calling up human rights. It was just so bizarre.

[lizw]

changing the definition of marriage is trying to redefine reality

Fr Ian read that and then preached yesterday on Romans 4:17: "the God in whom [Abraham] believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist".

[wildeabandon]

*like*