It would bother my conscience to treat one who practices homosexuality badly, without dignity and respect. But, because I treat someone rightly does not mean that I condone their practices.
You are right in saying that perspectives are based on beliefs.
The services they perform would certainly be valid for that organisation! The participants just wouldnât be legally married, until they also got married by an organisation which doesnât exclude people. As I note, this could be a simple register office thing, in much the same way as you might go through one of those after getting married in another country or on-board ship.
I guess I donât understand the reason for doing that.
I believe in some countries that there are two ceremonies, one that is religious, but needs to be also done at a government office to be legal. And people are just fine with that.
Yep. That arrangement is what Iâm suggesting; I didnât know some places already did it! Note that itâs not hard wired; you are welcome to perform services in the context of any religion you choose and have them recognised as legal marriages, as long as you are prepared to marry anyone.
Letâs say one belongs to the Church of the Global Standard Diety. (From the Thursday Next novels) That religion performs weddings, but only for people of that religion. Should they be required to do weddings for anyone walking in regardless of their standing with that organization?
No, theyâre not required to do weddings for anyone. If they want their weddings to also have the participants count as legally married, then they are required to do weddings for anyone. But they are totally free to reject whomever they like; participants in a GSD wedding will then need to also have a small register office wedding if they consider âlegalâ marriage important.
Had to use the whole day to think about this one. On one hand it kind of makes sense, after all I think in one country an official will even be there at the wedding to perform the legal stuff. But then I got thinking that the exclusion you mentioned is based on ideology. If I understand you, an organization that does not accept everyone will be excluded from the legal aspect. To do so, in the end, will really amount to discrimination, unless it is a universal thing that all marriages will be performed by an official. It will amount to âif you want to perform legal marriages, you must forget your values and principles.â How is that not discrimination?
Saying âyouâre not allowed to discriminateâ is, indeed, itself discriminating against the discriminatory. Requiring people to obey the law is discriminating against criminals. Opening a shop that sells apples is discriminating against motorcycles. But not in any meaningful way.
If your organisation believes that marriage, by its definition, is something apart from the legal definition, something qualitiatively different, then it is in my opinion right that there should be two ceremonies: one for the legal aspect of marriage and one for the organisationâs marriage, which is something different.
Seems to me thatâs a whole lot more effort than just saying: âthe govât has a thing it calls marriage, and if you want that, head down to the govât office and make it official, officially.â Everyone else can have marriage ceremonies and define marriage however discriminatory they want it, but the govât wonât recognize anything until the happy couple fills out the paperwork. In the end, you have a clean separation of what can be a religious institution and a govât institution. I donât know why I canât spell government all the way out.
Sorry - late returning to the conversation (been away for Easter)
As oldgeek mentioned, thatâs exactly what will happen. And if they fail in the UK, then theyâll take it to the court of European Human Rights. It is idiotic, but that doesnât mean it wonât happen, and it certainly doesnât mean they wonât win their case.
I think that youâve probably misunderstood some of the objections, including the anonymous email read out in the show. At the risk (again!) of a flame war, one of the primary objections is that âgay marriageâ is an incorrect term. The gay rights people want everyone to believe itâs some big civil rights thing, but many (sadly not all) of those against âgay marriageâ are perfectly happy for gay people to have a way of getting the same civil rights as married people. Their objection is to a redefinition of marriage, which is either undefined in law, or defined as between a man and a woman (sometimes mentioned procreation, but not always IIRC). Sexuality is never mentioned, and thus ânormalâ marriage could be between any two people, man and woman, regardless of their sexuality - 2 gay people (a gay man and a lesbian) could quite easily and legally get married under this definition, but are unlikely to want to, as their sexual preference would outside of the marriage bed.
I realise that this will seem like semantics. But redefining marriage based around sexuality completely changes the state of play, and many people object to that. (It should be noted that even some gay people object to the way the law is being redefined, ie in the case in Hawaii). It should equally be noted that objecting to gay marriage does not mean that you are homophobic, or against gay rights. But sadly, to use a term from the geek world, there is an increasing amount of FUD being spread around the whole issue.
Oh, and if you really want a follow up in the show, then I might be availableâŚ
Right. My proposal is not that the UK should do this on its own or anything. It was a suggestion for a way that the world could be organised which would be, in my opinion, better. Whether itâs possible to get there from here is another matter.