Current mood:	infuriated
Entry tags:	*headdesk*, bigots, catholicism, marriage

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.