The Muslim Council of Britain says no thanks to marriage equality for gays.
Farooq Murad, Secretary General of the MCB, said: “Whilst we remain opposed to all forms of discrimination – including homophobia – redefining the meaning of marriage is in our opinion unnecessary and unhelpful.
“With the advent of civil partnerships, both homosexual and heterosexual couples now have equal rights in the eyes of the law. Therefore, in our view the case to change the definition of marriage, as accepted throughout time and across cultures, is strikingly weak.”
He added: “Like other Abrahamic faiths, marriage in Islam is defined as a union between a man and a woman. So while, the state has accommodated for gay couples, such unions will not be blessed as marriage by the Islamic institutions.”
Wut? Marriage in Islam is defined as a union between a man and a woman? Orilly? What happened to sura 4:3? What happened to “or two, or three, or four”?
It’s sweet that they remain opposed to all forms of discrimination though. Really adorable.
It can be argued that bringing in “civil partnerships” as a separate entity from “marriages” was throwing a bone to the religuous bigots. The implicit obligation in that was that the religious institutions would not rock the boat. When that unrepentant bigot Lilian Ladele initiated her legal action, and the religious institutions did not collectively openly slap her down, that compact could be considered void. So now there will be only be one institution for all – marriage. The bigots have still been thrown a bone (smaller this time) – only civil registrars will perform it for same sex couples, even those religious denominations that are willing to recognise same sex marriage will be forbidden to perform them. I don’t expect the bigots to take the hint, so it will probably have to end with all religious denominations losing the right to perform a legally valid marriage ceremony.
[blockquote]It’s sweet that they remain opposed to all forms of discrimination though. Really adorable.[/blockquote]
That was the line that stuck out at me too. It’s like when someone starts a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…”
HTML fail…
You didn’t expect logic or rational thinking from the proponents of Islam, did you?
Just. Frukkin’. Stop it already!
Opposing the marriage of any two adults for the reason that their genders are the same is homophobic discrimination. (And biphobic discrimination, too!) It doesn’t even need to be said that heterosexuals would rarely want to marry another person of the same gender.
So no, the Muslim Council of Britain does not oppose all forms of discrimination. They actively advocate homophobia and biphobia!
Another big whopper: http://subfictional.com/2012/03/09/civil-partnerships-are-anything-but-equal/
Besides that:
“My mommy and mommy are civilly partnered.”
“Would you civilly partner with me?”
No, they will never be fully equal until they are truly equal and indistinguishable socially as well as legally.
Hm. Muslims nearly quoting Mormons. Imagine my surprise.
Muslims are hardly the folks to be talking about “traditional” marriages of one man and one woman.
If civil partnerships were equal to marriage, the religious bigots wouldn’t be fighting the change.
Which is absolutely fine under the current proposals. Nobody is talking about forcing institutions to perform gay weddings if they don’t want to. We’re just talking about allowing those institutions which do want to (the Quakers, the Unitarians, some liberal synagogues, etc) to do so. It actually is a question of religious freedom – the religious freedom for those institutions which want to be able to marry gay members to do so.
I agree with Dunc – the religious leaders can say whatever they want about how their religion will deal with same sex marriages on the basis of their religious beliefs and practices – ignoring their validity, telling the participants they are going to hell, whatever. However these views should have no bearing whatsoever on human rights and public policy. And wherever the religious institution bumps into public policy, the actions of the religious must comply with/defer to the principles of human rights (rather than the other way around, which is the way it always seems to happen).
“marriage in Islam is defined as ownership by a man of up to four women” FIFY
Actually, only two women, since each one only counts as a half.
Perhaps their problem is that they can’t work out who would own whom in a gay marriage.