Category Archives: Same-sex marriage

Do most Anglicans support gay marriage?

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The Ozanne Foundation has recently published a piece of research, carried out by YouGov, which claims that 55% of Anglicans believe that same-sex marriage is ‘right’.  The resulting headling in The Times was ‘Majority of Church of England worshippers back gay marriage’.

But this is deeply misleading.

In the representative sample used in the survey, 23% of the population of England and Wales said they were ‘Anglican’.  That’s 13.5 million people!  But we know that the average weekly attendance in Anglican churches is just under 750,000. …

The Bible is a heterosexual book

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It just is.  Martin Davie writes:

‘This is a point that is well made by the American writer Michael Brown in his book Can you be Gay and Christian?  He asks the question why there are only a tiny number of biblical verses that directly address the issue of same-sex sexual relationships.  His answer to this question is to draw an analogy with a book of recipes for sugar free puddings that has an introduction that explains why sugar should be avoided.…

LGBT: what does it mean to be ‘welcoming but not affirming’?

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In the eyes of many, the idea that churches can take a ‘welcoming but not affirming’ attitude towards LGBT people is absurd.  It inevitably leads to treating people as second class Christians, tolerated but not fully integrated into the life of the church.

The perceived absurdity is compounded by the myth that only two possibilities exist: either that of full and unconditional acceptance and affirmation, or that of rejection.  Any kind of middle ground is rarely explored.…

Gay marriage and the ‘trajectory’ of Scripture

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The ‘trajectory’ argument, briefly, is that there are certain practices (such as slavery) that are permitted in Scripture, but Scripture itself sows the seeds of their eventual abolition.  Conversely, there are certain practices (such as same-sex relations) that are forbidden in Scripture, but Scripture itself sows the seeds of their acceptance.

The Bishop of Bangor in the Church in Wales, Andy John, has invoked such a trajectory argument in his support of marriage for homosexual couples.…

‘It’s never going to happen. And when it does…’

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Rod Dreher’s ‘Law Of Merited Impossibility‘ is an epistemological construct governing the paradoxical way overclass opinion makers frame the discourse about the clash between religious liberty and gay civil rights. It is best summed up by the phrase, “It’s a complete absurdity to believe that Christians will suffer a single thing from the expansion of gay rights, and boy, do they deserve what they’re going to get.”’

Or, put more simply: ‘It’s never going to happen. …

‘A better story’ – 3

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Although the sexual revolution has been driven by powerful ideas, we should not underestimate the power of emotions – of gut feelings – in changing attitudes and behaviours.

Nor should be assume that the sexual revolution has entailed an abandonment of morality.  Rather, it has entailed a change in how we thing and feel about morality.

Jonathan Haidt has pictured the relationship between feeling and thought as that between an elephant and its rider.  If this analogy holds, then we need to appeal to the emotional elephant as well as to the intellectual rider.…

Sexual orientation and gender identity

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This recent post by Ian Paul has prompted me to return to the subject of statistics on sexual identity.

According to the Office for National Statistics:-

  • In 2016, just over 1 million (2.0%) of the UK population aged 16 and over identified themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB).
  • The population aged 16 to 24 were the age group most likely to identify as LGB in 2016 (4.1%).
  • More males (2.3%) than females (1.6%) identified themselves as LGB in 2016.
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Pray to be gay?

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So The Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, has urged people to pray for Prince George ‘to be blessed one day with the love of a fine young gentleman’.  This, he thinks, would eventually help move the Church of England into a position where it would allow gay couples to marry (which his own church – the Scottish Episcopal Church – voted in favour of earlier this year).

The Church of England has excused itself from commenting, since Mr Holdsworth is not a member of the C of E. …

Same-sex marriage: not near so much like a ball

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“I should like balls infinitely better… if they were carried on in a different manner… It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.”

“Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”

(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)

Peter Tatchell and Peter D Williams recently discussed the question of same-sex marriage.  Tatchell is, of course, a well-known human rights activist and supports same-sex marriage. …

Ten reasons not to legalise same-sex marriage

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Writing for the Christian Medical Fellowship, Dr Peter Saunders comments that there is increasing pressure in Britain to permit same-sex marriage.  The question for many has become how (not if) the law should be changed.

Dr Saunders gives ten reasons why the law should not be changed:-

1. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman

Throughout  history in virtually all cultures and faiths throughout the world,  marriage has been held to be the union of one man and one woman. …