Ben Goldacre wondered aloud on Twitter why it’s impossible to find out who is behind “Coalition for Marriage.” Why is it a secret?
Good question. What’s up with that? If you have a cause, why be secretive about it?
It’s a stupid “cause,” I must say.
The Coalition draws upon a substantial body of evidence showing that marriage – as it has been understood for thousands of years – is beneficial to society, and that changing its definition would undermine that benefit.
Except that marriage hasn’t been “understood” that way (they obviously mean one woman and one man) for thousands of years. The imbeciles are forgetting polygamy.
Well maybe that’s why they don’t want us to know who they are. They’re sekrit imbeciles.
They’re forgetting arranged marriages too. But what they’re mostly forgetting is that the “definition” of marriage now involves the legal union of two EQUAL partners.
Or more directly, that’s what they’re trying to redefine back out of existence.
Monogamy or near monogamy is actually the minority position throughout human history. In the West monogamy starts with the Romans (long before Christianity, but long after, say, Davidic Judaea, where it is clear that polygamy was the standard model). In terms of women having anything approaching equal rights in marriage (including a strong focus on consent), only one pre-modern civilisation achieved that: the Romans again, although medieval Japan should also get an honourable mention.
The rise of Christianity coincided with a substantial loss of rights for women in marriage, along with a ban (backed up with extensive, coercive enforcement) on same-sex marriage.
Perhaps what is needed is a revelation. The Mormons had two: one supporting polygamy followed by one not supporting it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy
No reason why we cannot have one for same-sex marriage.
Except that marriage hasn’t been “understood” that way (they obviously mean one woman and one man) for thousands of years. The imbeciles are forgetting polygamy.
No they aren’t. By “thousands of years” they mean “almost 2000” and by “understood” they mean “what Jesus said”. Monogamy was apparently ingrained in the culture ca 1st century AD – enough that it’s just assumed in a couple of places in the Gospels to be true.
They just don’t want to flat out say that the Christian definition of marriage is the only valid one – they want to dance around and pretend like this is some universal truth rather than something that particular civilizations at different points in time have valued one way or another.
My MP, is on the list, i wonder if he knows
I have emailed him, its about time i got off my arse and did something…well not exactly off my arse.
Dear Sir,
I am trying to discover which “organisations” support the Coalition for marriage.As only individuals appear on the list, perhaps, as a signatory, you could shed some light on the subject?
Sounds rather like the infamous “Estelle Morris Letter” where a bunch of creationists got together to pester the then Education Secretary without revealing that they were creationist activists. They didn’t come from a single organisation, but they did all represent the same cult.
http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/EstelleMorris
I was nearer than I thought! Looks like it involves our creationist friends the Christian Institute. The domain is registered to one Jon Errington at 4 Park Road
Newcastle upon Tyne, who happens to be the Finance Director of the CI, which is at that address.
http://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/downloads/twenty-years-of-christian-influence.pdf
They have their finger in other dirty little pies. Like being in cahoots with the creationist Jesmond Parish Church which is hoping to scrounge public money to open its own “free” school.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/02/hardline-evangelicals-seek-funding-for-free-school
Another MP signatory gets a mention on page 3 of that PDF. Edward Leigh MP.
Do we have a “Coalition for marriage for everyone” yet? Because I’m sure it’d do a lot better than 28000 signatures.
Well done Brian!
The imbeciles are also forgetting what redefine means.
The definition of marriage is clearly NOT being changed by allowing gays to participate. Its scope is simply expending to include LGBT persons. That’s all.
To redefine it would require the meaning of marriage to change for everyone. But the legal expansion of marriage doesn’t effect any of the marriages already recognized under the law.
IOW, marriage would still mean what it means today in England. A union of 2 consenting adults with all of its inherent rights and privileges.
So why is this battle being fought on their terms? We are just accepting now that including gays in the equation redefines marriage itself simply because a small group of religious fascist are making that claim?
Bullshit.
Instead, let’s challenge these pious parasites to show how exactly granting gays equal rights in marriage redefines the institution for everyone else.
I think you’re going the wrong way there, that description implies permissiveness which is, as we all know, the gateway to evil and liberals/satan/evil wizards destroying society. What you should be doing is saying the definition is being streamlined, after all removing mention of the participant’s gender would make it more efficient and not sound like you’re actually HELPING people (which is, of course, for wimps)
Checking up on a couple of the MPs revealed an education in Catholic schools. I don’t have time to check on all of them.
It’s basically trying to pander to the same crowd that the Daily Express (Don’t go outside! It’s full of blacks, queers and crime! If only Diana were still alive) and that raging pillock Melanie Phillips appeal to.
Basically morons and BNP sympathisers.
I am actually quite pleased with the UK. The likes of Melanie Phillips are rare and not as big a draw as say the likes of Bill O’Reilley and believe me she is odious. If there was some way to send her off to the USA to hang out with Piers Morgan we would… But sadly we cannot fob her off on you.
It is my greatest wish for two gay muslims biologists to adopt a baby in front of her because the ensuing aneurysm would probably cause her head to explode from the rage that this scene would cause.
I can shed some light on who is behind the Coalition for Marriage.
The website (c4m.org.uk) is registered to a Jon Errington, of Newcastle Upon Tyne. A Google search turns up a Jon Errington connected to The Christian Institute, a charity dedicated to “promote Christian influence in a secular world”. Errington is listed as the finance director of the charity. The addresses as which the the website and charity are registered are the same.
So clearly this is an attempt to hide the religious nature of the founders of Coalition for Marriage.
Polygamy includes polygyny, polyandry and group marriage all of which are very ancient cultural customs that persist to this day. So the ‘definition’ of marriage is quite elastic, encompassing as it does one-one, one-many, many-one and many-many relationships. It is quite clear then that gay marriage falls within this definition. For legal marriage the definition is found in the civil law which treats marriage as a property contract (if you don’t believe that just get a divorce). There should be nothing inherent in gay marriage that subverts the property aims of civil marriage.
If one is concerned about religious marriage then that is a separate matter entirely and a private matter to boot! No-one is saying that individuals can’t define marriage according to their religion and live it – as long as it complies with civil law. It is the state that gives one the licence to marry not Islam, not RCC inc, not the ABC….
Hey, i only sent an email.
http://menmedia.co.uk/middletonguardian/news/s/1486285_middleton-mp-jim-dobbin-under-fire-for-backing-campaign-opposing-gay-marriage
About the Coalition for Marriage, I had a reply from my MP
Thank you for your email dated 22nd February.
The core groups supporting the Coalition for Marriage include, Christian Concern, Christian Institute, Evangelical Alliance and CARE. There are broader groups like The Catholic Church, CofE, Baptists, amongst others.
I hope that this is of some help.
Kind regards
Jim Dobbin MP
He’s not even ashamed