Equality Bill: Lord Alli’s amendment succeeds. The House of Lords has voted to allow the use of religious premises and religious language in same-sex civil partnerships.
I can already predict the responses from both sides of the camp on this news that the House of Lords has voted in favour of allowing civil partnership ceremonies to take place in “religious” buildings such as churches. I’m sure you can too.
As a result, I’m going to post a few links reporting this news, and then post in full, the only sane, sober, sensible comments I have read on this issue, written by our Christian Libertarian friend, the Young Mr Brown.
Here are the news links:-
Press Association – Civil partnership church ban lifted
Times – Peers vote for church civil partnership ceremonies
Mail – Gay couples now able to marry in church after House of Lords lifts ban
Telegraph – Peers vote to allow homosexuals to marry in church
Ekklesia – Parliament votes to recognise religious same-sex partnerships
And here are the thoughts of Young Mr Brown from Marmalade Sandwich:-
Civil Partnerships and Religious Premises
In a letter to the Times this morning, a group of gentlemen have argued that the current law which prohibits civil partnerships from being registered in any religious premises in Great Britain should be repealed, and they write in support of an amendment which would do just that. They argue on two grounds – the spiritual independence of churches, and the principle of non-discrimination. Indeed the way they end their letter (“We urge every peer who believes in spiritual independence, or in non-discrimination, to support it.”) indicates that they are aware that there are people who may support one of their arguments but not the other.
I personally am not convinced by their argument concerning non-discrimination, and agree with the Bishop of Winchester that “churches of all sorts really should not reduce or fudge, let alone deny, the distinction” between marriage and civil partnership.
(On the other hand, I am not convinced by the argument of the Bishops of Winchester and Chichester that changing the law would put unacceptable pressure on the Church of England. As long as the law does not compel the Church of England, then the Church has the ability to decide what it believes is correct, and the duty to withstand pressures from society.)
I do, however, believe that the argument concerning spiritual independence is valid – and that the law as it stands is very strange. If the Quakers and the Unitarians want to register civil partnerships in their places of worship, then that is a matter for them, and not for the state. Traditional Christians will be horrified at such things happening, but their horror should be directed not at the state for permitting these things, but at the Quakers and Unitarians for wishing to do them. If traditional Christians want freedom to proclaim that homosexual activity is wrong, and to exclude practising homosexuals from their membership, then they should be willing to allow freedom to religious bodies which think otherwise.
Tags: Church Life, Law Moral Ethical, News, Politics
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:42 am
The problem that I see with this is that it will be used to compel churches to provide civil partnerships. The legal tools are already there for this move: argue that provision of church facilities for a wedding or civil partnership is a “service” and therefore subject to the legislation regarding non-discrimination in provision of services. If denied these “services” then sue.
We are well into the Establishment of Secular Humanism as a civil religion. Most recent “anti-discrimination” laws are really about enforcing secularist morality.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:11 am
I have the same trepidation.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:18 am
Neoliberal horizontalism, a desecration of order. To knowingly oath on desecrated ground in this way invalidates the oath.
Marriage is now meaningless in the U.K. – nothing more than a incidental on a bureaucrats tick box list.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
@Goy, you have a natural gift at seeing straight to the heart of a matter and then articulating it wonderfully briefly
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:09 pm
The Christian Institute have articulated your thoughts David:-
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/homosexual-unions-allowed-in-churches/
Churches will be allowed, but not compelled, to register homosexual civil partnerships following a late night vote in the Lords yesterday.
However, critics fear the change in the law could open the way for litigation against churches that refuse to register such unions.
And others oppose the move because it makes civil partnerships more like full homosexual ‘marriage’.
At 11pm last night Peers voted by 95 to 21 in favour of an amendment to the Equality Bill moved by Labour Peer Lord Alli.
The Government resisted his amendment in January, saying it was “not a workable solution to this issue”.
However, last night, despite arguing against it on the same grounds, the Government unexpectedly allowed its Peers a free vote on the issue.
The Conservative Party also gave its Peers a free vote, as did the Liberal Democrats.
In a rare break with normal procedure announced only yesterday, the political parties agreed to sit late into the night to allow the Bill to receive its entire Report Stage in one day.
This led to Lord Alli’s amendment being reached late last night – when scores of Peers who would have voted against it were not in the House.
It appears the Equality Bill will now complete all its parliamentary stages before the General Election. The House of Commons will therefore need to approve the amendment.
The Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Revd David James, voted against the amendment. During the debate he warned of “unintended consequences”.
He said: “When we consider changes to the law, we need to be clear about what they are meant to achieve and what, in practice, they do achieve.”
He said there had been “no practical difficulties so far” with the existing legislation.
Lord Waddington, a former Home Secretary, argued: “If this amendment were carried, it would only be a matter of time before it was argued that it was discriminatory for a church incumbent to refuse to allow a civil partnership ceremony to take place when the law allowed it.”
And if legal challenges in the courts failed, Lord Waddington added, “it would not be long before Stonewall was back, demanding repeal of this permissive provision and for a clear duty to be placed on churches to register civil partnerships.
“Is that not the way Stonewall has always worked? And was not Mr Ben Summerskill of Stonewall hinting just that when recently he said that right now faiths should not be forced to hold civil partnerships although in 10 or 20 years’ time things may change.”
Ben Summerskill responded to last night’s vote saying: “We are absolutely delighted with this vote for religious freedom. It will be warmly welcomed by lesbian and gay people of faith.”
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Hi chaps, we just covered this in a small group as we are considering politics at present and I just happened to find your blog and was frustrated to read CI’s comments above as we wondered if there was something in it (having not got the full info) regarding same sex marriages. Am I the only one who feels “religious freedom” is anything but freedom if it is legislated by a government to potentially force churches (given the comments above re: the legalities of discrimination) to marry people who do not agree in key principals of that religion?
I am pretty level headed and do not jump up and down to make my point, but I cannot help feeling that this government is eroding the key principals of the church in a creeping and insidious way….rant over, sorry guys just needed to get it out.