The former Archbishop of Canterbury has come out to oppose gay marriage. He says he doesn’t “begrudge rights and benefits to homosexual couples”, and he also made this statement:
The state does not ‘own’ the institution of marriage. Nor does the church.
The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way.
So who got to define it in the first place? What makes an antique definition sacred? Why shouldn’t society adapt to reality?
And at the same time, Lord Carey calls gay marriage “cultural vandalism” and is supporting a group called the Coalition for Marriage, a new UK organization that makes the same tired old arguments.
If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People’s careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?
You know, people’s careers are harmed and couples are excluded from adoption right now because of the existing anti-equality policies; the difference such a law would make is that instead of gay people being harmed, it would be bigots who would face the consequences of their beliefs. This isn’t a “save marriage” movement, it’s a “save the bigots” movement.
There’s a poll. Even if it is in that dumb rag, The Telegraph, it’s going the right way. How about pushing it further, and slapping the Telegraph around a little bit?
Should gay marriage by legalised?
Yes, everyone should have the right to get married no matter what their sexuality 81.12%
No, marriage should be between a man and a woman 18.88%
Carey is a relic from a long-passed age who should stay quiet and keep his views far, far away from public discourse. Sadly, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail in the UK are cheerleaders for this sort of nonsense, so he is guaranteed a platform.
Not familiar with English law, but is it possible to get married in England without using a church or clergy? I know you can in the US (Wife and I were married that way) and, if it is possible in England, than he just shot down his own argument.
Put up, or shut up. How, exactly, could this happen if gay marriage is legal?
——
Good to see the polls numbers as they are. I wonder if the Telegraph will pull the poll they are pushing when they see the push is not what they wanted in their poll?
I see this all the time, and I still don’t get it. How, exactly? How could anyone’s career get sidelined because of marriage equality? I mean, if they mouth off about how much it sucks and they get fired for it, that’s not the fault of changing the law, that’s the fault of them being both a bigot and unable to keep their mouth shut. And adoption? Seriously? “Oh, I’m sorry, you can’t adopt this child because you’re not gay.” In what messed-up world is that even a remotely likely scenario?
One of these things is not like the other… how is this in any way a problem? Schools have to teach new things to children all the time! That’s why they’re schools! Because they teach things children don’t already know! If you don’t think children should have their ideas challenged, why are you letting them out of your basement in the first place?
Aaagh. I’m losing my patience with The Stupid. If you want to prevent marriage equality because you’re a bigot, just SAY SO. Cut out all this pointless dancing around the issue and trying to rationalise the “gays are icky” impulse.
Or, y’know, stop being a bigot.
Ogvorbis @2 – yep, perfectly possible to get married in the UK without any church or clergy involved.
71.88%. Needs moar Pharyngulation.
It’s started slipping.
Yes, everyone should have the right to get married no matter what their sexuality 78.42%
No, marriage should be between a man and a woman 21.58%
Total Votes: 3,268
Incoherent says it best. I can’t even understand what he’s arguing for.
“Neither the church nor the state have the right to define marriage. Therefore the church’s definition is the correct one.”
What?
I honestly don’t understand these beliefs. All of have to do it point at say … Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, or Sweden. The sky hasn’t fallen and no ones marriage is being diminished. It’s like no one had ever done this before when 10 countries have gone ahead and not one of them is facing any negative consequences about it.
OMFSM schools would have to teach children something new?!?!!111!!! I’m shocked.
At least he didn’t go with “allow you to marry your dog”.
It amazing that they can both argue that the definition shouldn’t be changed to include same-sex couples because “The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church” and yet also say that it shouldn’t be changed because “If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?”.
In many countries, marriage is already defined to include polygamy. The definition that includes polygamy certainly precedes the Christian church and the UK state.
Only 75%. Yep, it looks like someone other than us has discovered the joys of messing with online polls. Keep it up, folks.
wait
what?
That paper needs to fire an editor. “Should gay marriage by legalised?”
RDC @12
They mean the people who get paid to push the no-gay-marriage theme.
Someone who doesn’t want to marry two men/women gets fired because they refused to do the job they are payed to do… But I’m just guessing.
(And they would harm their own careers. It’s not the changing of the definition of marriage that is the problem, it’s their own bigotry.)
Not familiar with English law, but is it possible to get married in England without using a church or clergy? – Ogvorbis
Not only is it possible, but even if you choose to involve clergy, the words they say have no legal force whatever: what counts is the marriage certificate, signed by the couple and two witnesses.
Can we somehow put an end to the idea that marriage as it exists now is how it has always been? Marriage didn’t used to be about romantic love. Marriage didn’t used to include an autonomous, freely-choosing woman. Marriage didn’t used to involve two people making the decision on their own. Marriage didn’t used to take place between two sexually mature adults. Marriage didn’t used to take place between two people only.
And of course, in many places marriage still is about economics mostly, still presupposes the woman as chattel, is arranged, involves children (or near-children), or is polygamous.
The way “we” Westerners do marriage is hardly the way it has ever been done.
Nah. We’ll have you guillotined lickety-split, so don’t even worry about it.
Somehow? Crack an anthropology text. Preferably over the head of one of these ‘1 man + 1 woman 4 eva→’ types.
Obviously, that means state-employed officials who would be required to sign and stamp marriage certificates for people their god tells them shouldn’t be allowed to indulge in behavior that offends said deity. People who get paid to do a lawful job and instead refuse to do so and implicitly insult their customers tend to get fired. Deal with it.
The foster care issue appears to allude to a case where a fundamentalist bigot couple were refused the right to adopt or foster children because they vowed to teach the kids to be proper bigots. British society decided that having fewer bigots making up society was a good thing for society. Imagine that.
People in England and Wales (and Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the rules are different) can have a civil ceremony. Such ceremonies are conducted by registrars employed by local authorities, and can take place either at a Registry Office, or at premises that have been granted a licence. Those are normally upmarket hotels, stately homes etc.. No only is there no mention of god in such ceremonies, it is actually against the rules to have any specific mention of god, or have religious iconography on display.
Doesn’t he mean redefine it back to polygamy?
Uh, it already has been? What the hell was this, then?
No true
Scotsmanmarriage?We have had a case in the UK of a women who was employed by a London local authority to conduct civil marriages and civil partnerships.
She refused to carry out civil partnerships ceremonies because she claimed her religious beliefs meant she could not condone homosexuality.She was dismissed as a result of her refusal. She took her case to an employment tribunal, who ruled that she had no legal basis to refuse to carry out such ceremonies, and that the local authority was entitled to dismiss her for refusing to do her job.
Needless to say the case was seen as an example of how Christians are being persecuted in the UK. I recall Carey gave evidence in a written submission in which he claimed that being anti-gay on religious grounds meant it was not bigotry. The tribunal rejected that argument, I presume on the grounds it is not really an argument.
That seems simple and straightforward to me. But the bigots who use religion to excuse and justify their bigotry obviously disagree.
Eric Schwartz still has it right.*
In the immortal words of the Prophet Mohammed, Carey can suck my left one.**
Louis
*Okay, he has SOME of it right.
**Maximally offensive for extra bonus points.
What does he mean anyway by “redefine”?
I note that divorce used to be common in Roman times, was then gradually phased out by the RCC until it was almost completely impossible. Then an English king left the RCC over the question, but even then the Anglican church allowed the remarriage of divorcees only in exceptional circumstances. But nowadays probably most people in England don’t care about this.
The institution of matrimony has been tinkered with constantly through the ages. How come an archbishop does not know this?
Carey being a total irrelevance in today’s church pop’s up now and then like one of those raggedy bonkers, completely dribbling insane hermits that used to gambol around the fringes of society a few centuries back…cadging the odd half bottle of rot gut plonk or a crust of mouldy bread…and squawking some batshit inanity about bewaring the ides of March except on a Thursday if the wind is in the west and the virgin be impure…. according to ecclesiastics 101.
The dude babbles incoherent woe woe and thrice woes fairly consistently since becoming a has-been top doggy…and basically leans to the right of Genghis Khan in his assessment of the evils of society and his patent god inspired fixits….which invariably have very little to do with what is actually required.
The Brits ignore him by smiling at him as one would a favorite uncle, and avoiding the old fart like the bubonic plague.
Believe me…it is best all around!
Yep, Carey has been making great use of his unelected seat in the House of Lords as a platform from which to piss and whine about how Christians are being persecuted in the UK by being forced to abide by the same laws as everyone else.
In related news Education Secretary Michael Gove’s latest wheeze is to insist that you can’t ban Faith schools from using homophobic pamphlets – because the curriculum supposedly isn’t covered by anti-discrimination laws:
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/feb/18/anti-gay-book-gove-row"
We had the same thing happen in Saskatchewan, marriage commissioners, who conduct civil marriage ceremonies, who didn’t want to marry same sex couples when gay marriage became legal. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruled they had to, as it was part of their job. The conservative Saskatchewan Party government did the sensible thing and accepted the ruling, presumably because they knew it was a losing game.
The “it’s against my religion” argument doesn’t hold water to me. If you accept it for same sex couples why not interreligious couples, since it might be against a commissioner’s religious beliefs to marry them? Or interracial couples? As we all know some losers still have problems with that.
And those are both examples of marriage being redefined. People used to find mixed religion marriages a lot more scandalous. Mixed races marriages were not only scorned, in some places they were actually illegal. So please, Mr. Carey, don’t make silly statements implying marriage has never been redefined.
Sorry, link should be
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/feb/18/anti-gay-book-gove-row
That’s one thing I like to bring up when someone uses the word “traditional.” If same-sex couples can’t get married because it’s not “traditional,” what’s to stop the traditionalists from taking away my right to have a heterosexual, but non-traditional marriage where I actually love a woman for her character and respect her autonomy? What’s to stop them from taking away my right to marry because I’m an atheist?
That’s the thing about rights. If you make exceptions for one group, they cease to be rights and set precedents for other groups to be excluded from the arbitrary privilege.
So, if there are any married fundies reading: What’s to stop them from defining your marriage as against “tradition” for some frivolous reason?
interesting. either he means “no longer given preferential status”, or he means “bigots might be considered unfit as adoptive/foster parents”. either way, I see no problem
Beatrice:
Around 34% of schools in England are faith schools (I think the legal term is “school with a religious character”). The Tories would like this proportion to increase, particularly via their new “free school” programme (US readers would recognise these as similar to US charter schools). Needless to say, religious groups are salivating at the prospect. Back when Carey was archbish, the Church of England published a report (The Way ahead: Church of England schools in the new millennium) which “confirmed the crucial importance of the Church schools to the whole mission of the Church to children and young people, and indeed to the long-term well-being of the Church of England” (emphasis added). Like tobacco companies, the CofE understands that, to survive, it needs to hook people while they’re children.
Free schools aren’t required to follow the national curriculum, which makes them attractive to the church. Still, if gay marriage is introduced, it’ll be hard for faith schools to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Shorter Carey: “secular change makes it harder for us to teach our shit to kids”.
and
and
Good to hear. I thought as much but, thanks to Pharyngula, I have become much more aware of my ignorance about
the barbarianother country’s laws. When Wife and I were married, way back in 1989, the meaningful words were, “By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, I now pronounce you man and wife.” That, along with the blood test and signatures, made us legally married. Oddly, those are exactly the same things that a minister/preist/imam/rabbi/whatever has to say to make the marriage legal.Presumably this has something to do with the people in registry offices etc. not being allowed to be bigots at work anymore. They wouldn’t, for example, be able to refuse to marry a gay couple whilst continuing to marry straight couples. The same for foster parents. There was a big thing in the papers here last year involving a couple who had decided to stop fostering kids because new guidelines meant that they’d no longer be able to spew bigoted anti-gay bullshit at them, and a religious adoption agency who threatened to shut themselves down (I have no idea whether they actually did or not) because they’d no longer be able to refuse to give kids to gay couples simply on account of them being gay.
Basically, people who refuse to do their jobs, when their jobs involve admitting that gay people are equal to them may be in danger of losing their jobs.
Maybe Lord Carey should read through that article and swap the word ‘gay’ for ‘inter-racial’, and see if he thinks it’s so acceptable then.
This is just more “But YOUR right to equality gets in the way of MY right to be a bigotted fuckwit” bullshit, we seem to be getting more and more of it over here.
In other news, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa Spain and Sweden have not been smote by an angry homophobic god.
Rush Limbaugh would beg to differ with you regarding Iceland.
No. Never mind. That was because of the Health Insurance Reform Act. Or whatever it was called.
Carey has always been a nauseating bigot, and just as he used his former platform as Archbishop to push his bigotry, so he is using his seat in the House of Lords to the same purpose today.
Needless to say, it is not just homosexuals he hates. Just recently, he was once again demonstrating his antipathy toward us godless baby-eaters.
In that link I found a couple of particulrly telling freudian slips on Carey’s part;
(Emphasis added)
That really does speak volumes right there. Anyone else getting a concentration-camp-fantasy type vibe from Carey?
You see, that’s your problem – all these inconsiderate minorities so thoughtlessly demanding that society respect their fundamental humanity, thereby trampling all over the far more important right of christians to be bigots…
And there it is – the big fatwah-envy finish.
Sorry, Carey, but you won’t be presiding over any heretic or apostate burnings any time soon.
I would rather be married by a TV repairman, who, under the power invested in him by Barney’s Repair Service, pronounces us a working set, than let any clergyman have a role.
The Archbishop is saying “The state does not ‘own’ the institution of marriage. Nor does the church.” and that the state may not unilaterally define marriage. Yet he insists that the church can unilaterally define marriage.
They did. And the figures aren’t looking so great for you, Carey.
Ogvorbis @38
“Rush Limbaugh would beg to differ with you regarding Iceland”
God now uses financial instruments to smite Nations? He must really hate the USA!
How much time in school is being devoted to defining “traditional” marriage, anyway?
I think he was referring to the unpronounceable volcano.
Lord Carey is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, thus, along with the Queen, former co-pope of the Church of England, which was founded specifically to redefine marriage for King Henry VIII so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. How could he have climbed so high in such an organization without appreciating that the Church must at least claim to “own” the institution of marriage (as much as it can be owned), and that it can certainly be redefined when required? At the time the C of E was founded, it was a matter of securing the succession. Now, it’s a question of treating all people decently and equally, but the principles remain.
Goddamn does this bug me. You know what, so what if it does? What’s the problem huh? If you actually have a problem with poly people make that argument. Don’t bash gays because you want a DMZ target for your bigotry. If you have an issue with polygamy make that issue. If not you’re just trying to use one type of bigotry to excuse another.
Nice strawman.
Answer: Nothing; the same thing that will CAUSE it to be ‘redefined to allow polygamy’.
In other words, this senile old git has no argument, and he knows it.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png
“The test of democracy is how we contain disagreements and particularly contain minorities.”
Yep fucking chilling and charming…what he is saying …as anyone can easily tell, is that they are searching for a way to ignore and sideline minorities.
In other words ‘contain’ the argument against theist dumbfuckery and enforce a marginalization that insures that secualr/atheist voices will be unheard and in fact unseen thus leaving jeebus inc. free range and privilege.
His rationaal being the well worn theist lie that secular, read atheist in dumbfuck blackspeech, must comprise under 30% of the UK population, and probably much less because xians account for over 70%…apparently god says so?
This apparent figure the jeebus droolers claim, indicate that Atheism is a minority, with that intent mentioned, he simply wants them to be ignored….’contained’ in his jargon.
Dawkins and the recent release of an Ipsos Mori poll just blew that old chestnut well out of the water.
The actual screaming and wailing theist uproar has hit fever pitch over that one and on a dark level is quite funny.
Churchmen making absurd and panicky claims…more then usual…
The UK public are singularly unmoved, cos they don’t give a monkey’s nuts anyway.
No rioting in the streets anyways …it might spook the horses.
What was particularly interesting to me, was that Carey spent half the piece extolling the virtues of marriage and how society and families benefit from marriage without realising he was undermining his entire argument.
For seven years the dinosaur Carey was chancellor of the university where I work. Thankfully he resigned before spouting obnoxious, poorly-argued bigotry like this in public.
I think he’s going to find more people agreeing with that than he expected… but that he won’t at all like their take on it.
In fact, I suspect this attitude is playing a large part in the growing acceptance of gay marriage.
Devout, faithful Anglicans like Lord Carey should never accept same-sex marriage, because it is an affront to the traditional family values upheld by Henry VIII and his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and his wife, Anne Boleyn, and his wife, Jane Seymour, and his wife, Anne of Cleves, and his wife, Catherine Howard, and his wife, Catherine Parr. They all knew the meaning of marriage and none of them lost their heads over the matter.
“If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?”
This is always stated as something terrible this polygamy. Outside of tha fact that polygamy used to be pretty common, what makes it wrong today? If three people wanted to get married, what would be the harm?
Hurry – get over there – it’s going the wrong way!
Yes 75.2%
No 24.8%
‘Tis wins again!
This made me go and look up Ipsos Mori’s own summary of the survey results.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2921/Religious-and-Social-Attitudes-of-UK-Christians-in-2011.aspx
Quite encouraging, really, especially considering this was a survey of attitudes among those who self-identify as xtians in the first place.
74% of UK xtians “strongly agree or tend to agree that religion should not have special influence on public policy”.
61% of UK xtians “agree that homosexuals should have the same legal rights in all aspects of their lives as heterosexuals”
62% of UK xtians “support an adult woman’s right to have an abortion within the legal time limit”
I couldn’t see whether there were figures comparing this to the same questions asked of those who do not self-identify as xtians. A fraction over half the total number surveyed self-identified as xtians, and I remember reading elsewhere that about 3% of the UK population are muslims – and I think they are the next biggest single religious group; corrections plz? But if so, that adds up to rather a lot of non-religious people, maybe 40% or so at a conservative guesstimate?
The poll is going in the wrong direction!!!
Get over there and right this wrong!!
Bronze Dog:
I like your counter-slippery slope.
-the education system in the UK must be different than in the US. I can’t recall learning *anything* about marriage while attending public school. Does anyone ever point bigots like this to the many cultures throughout the ages that viewed the ‘institution of marriage’ quite a bit differently?
I’m reminded of this bishop on Catholic Radio last week who told a bold faced lie with his assertion that (paraphrasing) “every culture throughout human history has defined marriage as a sacred bond of love between a man and a woman”. How can they not even see in their precious mythological book that marriage isn’t about love. The marriages in the bible as Betty Bowers points out* had little to do with a man and woman joining together in holy matrimony.
*(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw&feature=player_embedded)
Just to clarify a point of English law.
People become married once they have done the vows with the registrar. The signing of the register is just registration of the marriage, it doesn’t cause the marriage to come into being.
This is one of the main differences between marriages and civil unions in England. For civil unions, it’s the signing of the contract that creates the civil union, not the vows.
If we also exclude those who self-identify as belonging to other religions, then the figures are likely to be in the 90%+ region. The British public is quite often pretty liberal on these matters, ahead even of their politicians. Most of the UK public want to see euthanasia made legal in the UK, but not our politicians. Instead we have a typical British compromise in which as long as you are acting out of compassion, and not in a professional capacity then the law will turn a blind eye.
OK, so is it just me who read “The former Archbishop of Canterbury has come out…” and then got confused by the rest of the sentence? It’d certainly make a better news story than ‘predictable bigot is predictable’.
Short answer is property law complicates it.
Property law complicates marriage between 2 people.
No shit.
Two people in case of divorce have a clear split potentially. Between three people creates more math problems. How do you split property, cohabitation, how do you do a 1/2 ratio split? How do you finalize divorce? Whose married to who etc etc. It’s not undoable but it isn’t as easy as two moving parts.
persiflage says:
Just ask the crown prince.
regarding polygamy:
there is also the welfare problem.
Germany, for instance, recognises polygamous marriages from e.g. Saudi Arabia, but only the first wife is eligible to receive benefits under the German welfare system. But I’m told that in Islam, a polygynous marriage is only considered proper if the husband can support more than one wife.
Next time somebody says they believe in traditional marriage, ask them what constitutes an appropriate dowry these days.
Not to offend anyone, but it’s just that I think straight marriage is a slippery-slope to gay marriage.
Done – cheers. Latest figures as of now :
***
Thank you for voting!
Yes, everyone should have the right to get married no matter what their sexuality 80.22% (11,077 votes)
No, should be between a man & a woman 19.78% (2,732 votes)
Total Votes: 13,809
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@sunsangnim :
Or you could ask them *which* tradition – Zulu, Incan, ancient Spartan?
Carey seems to becoming more annoying (although amusingly so IMO, but YMMV) as he’s got older. Maybe being the Archbish forces the holder to keep the more objectionable of their views private during their time in office.
In England, between 1753 (Hardwicke’s law) and 1837 (Marriage Act 1836 comes into force), the only legally recognised marriages were Church of England marriages (exceptions only for Quakers and Jews).
Many of the usual arguments were trotted out in favour of this system – why, it wasn’t as if Catholics, Methodists, and the like, weren’t allowed to marry. It’s just that either they did it Anglican, or their marriage was considered void and their children bastards. Perfectly fair. If you allowed any old dissenter church to redefine marriage to their liking, the word would cease to mean anything at all.
I don’t know that they actually went as far as that last (although after the passing of the act there , but there were some who believed that the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths was pretty much the end of the world, or at least of the Church of England, which they saw as the same thing.
From a rant in Blackwood’s Magazine, regarding the Marriage Act and the accompanying act for civil registration of births and deaths:
Same shit, different century.