h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Religious People. Please can you explain something me. Very slowly and carefully because I do not get it.

I am a man. I am married to a woman.

If two men or two women get married how will this harm our marriage?

I have listened carefully to Archbishop Carey and I don't understand it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9093297/Lord-Carey-gay-marriage-would-be-cultural-vandalism.html

Despite the above I am actually genuinely interested in the opinions of Christians, particularly those that oppose gay marriage. I wish to understand them.

No one is forcing you to have a gay marriage, or even to perform one in your church.

I'm probably not an objective witness, because I'd agree with Vicky Coren if she suggested invading an Eastern European country and slaughtering all their ethnic minorities, but somebody recently pointed me the way of this article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/29/victoria-coren-church-force-good

It is the church's role to object in circumstances such as this. Not to do so would be a debasement of their entire livelihood. I am sure there are quite a few clergy who are quite amenable to the concept of same-sex marriage.

B

I totally agree about Victoria Cohen.

The church should be standing up for the poor and the oppressed. Though there's no reason why athetists can't do that as well..

I'm really confused by this argument, I just don't get it though.

Well, the Bible does tend to object to this sort of thing. And the church do like teaching the Bible. At least the bits of it they think are relevant.

B

Yes. But they aren't saying that 'gay marriage is bad, the bible say so'. That argument makes sense.

They are saying 'Gay marriage is bad, it will harm the institution of marriage.'

I am reminded of the truism that religion is like a penis.

It's nice to have one.
It's ok to be proud of it.
But please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around.
And please, please, please don't shove it down small children's throats.

Holocaust reference? Check.

Paedophile reference? Check.

Statements likely to provoke Christians? Check.

Not bad for the first seven posts...

B

How else can we be offensive?

Couldn't bring myself to watch the actual film...but my understanding is that Carey is very much on the evangelical wing of CofE...the ones that have infected it in recent years.

Rather than religious people in general...best direct your question to those types...they are a whole other 'strain'. Personal experience of these types involved a lot of literalist talk of Satan...but he's probably far too sensible to start talking about that in this context.

I can offer some arguments from religious people, pro and con.

Some Spanish theologists gave an answer to the hierarchical Church in a newspaper article. (It was 2005, the socialist party has just legalized the right to get married, to adopt children, etc.)

The idea was that in the Bible, there´s not a single word against homosexual marriage. What is more, the Sodoma and Gomorrah story have been misinterpreted. The thing the inhabitants did wrong was that they failed to follow the principle of hospitality/assylum towards foreigners. Instead of offering them comfort and help they were abused.

On the other hand, the religious against it, say that a marriage is between a man and a woman. And nothing else.
In Spain they focused on the semantics of the word marriage : matrimonio, which has the word matri /madre/ mother in it.

Then the fundamentalist offered their opinion, well their MUSTBEDONESO:
Sex is for procreation, a marriage is to have children, gay people can´t procreate so they can´t marry. Besides, they offend GOd with their practices, sex must be practiced after the sacrament of marriage. It´s a serious, holy thing...

Then you have the opinion of homophobes, they can be religious, hal-religious, atheists... they simply ignore people feelings and rights.

If marriage's sole purpose is procreation all the marriages currently not actively procreating should be dissolved...or...?

Ho-hum, since marriage is a legal registration there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to get any religious zealots involved. Let them have their mock ceremonies if that make them happier. Just keep them out of the lives of the general population.

As far as I know, marriage is not mandatory so why make such a fuss about it. Let people that want to get married, marry. As long as it's between adults, voluntary and in consent I can't see why anyone else should object.

Let's go back a hundred years and more, to a time when pestilence and unsanitary living conditions doomed a fairly high percentage of very young children to death before their 5th birthdays. In this context, everyone who was biologically capable of producing offspring had a duty to do so, no matter what gender they were attracted to. Men who would rather have been with other men had no choice but to carry on their family lines, or at least give it their best shot. Sure, there were loopholes such as going into the clergy, but they could then be required to marry *other* couples. Can you see the problems with this? One problem is that the Catholic clergy grew to have a fairly high percentage of gay men in it [not high in absolute terms, but higher than society at large]. In a few cases, some of these men were also attracted to young boys, which the Church seems to have tried to hide. In some other cases, the pederasts were not attracted to grown men, but neither were they good marriage material, so they also gravitated toward the clergy.

I have seen studies of Christian Church history that argued that for about one millennium, the Church had no particularly strong opinions about the sanctity of marriage one way or the other. I've even seen arguments [based on scripture] that Saint Paul himself was gay. Given his sterling reputation, this seems not to have ruffled any feathers at all. Then again, I think that scriptures can be interpreted in different ways. In any event, there are *plenty* of people on the planet now. If gay men and women refused to procreate at all, it's not likely that overpopulation would abate one bit. One irony here is that ,many gay people of both genders *want* to have children. There are ways for them to do that now. I just think that religious doctrines seem to lag behind events quite a bit. Maybe in a hundred years the church attitudes will be more kindly toward gay marriage. Them again, maybe they will be even more stringent because of events that haven't happened yet but will change the context.

It doesn't harm the institution of marriage. It harms the institution of the Church.

Face it. What have the CoE got? Nobody goes to church any more except for hatchings, matchings and dispatchings.

Less kids are being Christened, and humanist funerals seem to be on the rise, so the one jealously guarded arrow in their quiver is marriage.

Gay marriage goes against the bible. Allowing gay marriage in churches would be tantamount to admitting that the CoE is basically just a 15th Century-themed wedding planning service, and that they're not relevant.

So, we ask, if the CoE isn't relevant, why so many clergy in the Lords? Why so many priests at the top table?

And if we don't favour the de-facto "state" religion, why give any religion any special status over book clubs, scout troops, etc?

That's not a convincing argument to ban it - viewing religion as important for the sake of keeping it important. So they need something to convince credulous people.

So you say that somehow, giving gay people equal rights devalues what you, the straight majority can do. Their rights erode yours. It's the only argument they have left.

And it's a terrible shame for the cassock-wearing god-botherers that it's a ing ridiculous argument that holds no water with anyone who thinks about it rationally for a minute.

But hey, that's organised religion!

When people are forced to get married because society says so, or because their children will be teased at school or to get tax breaks it harms the idea of marriage in my eyes. It makes it less of a chosen commitment because of love and more an obligation. Similarly when girls are bought up to believe that the big white wedding will be the pinnacle of their achievement. I've been to weddings where the dress seemed more important than the man.

Whilst this doesn't harm my marriage per se it devalues the commitment I've made.

i imagine that if you feel gay couples are just going through the motions it is the same?

I like the wishy washy traditional set-up of the CofE. We had it at school, hymns, prayers etc in assembly. We all enjoyed the ritual of it. Human beings being emotional creatures as well with a need for ritual, yeah and that can be just birth, marriage and deaths.

As all humans are fully capable of compartmentalisation of thinking...it had no effect whatso ever on us taking biology as truthful in the ultimate sense. In any case the metaphorical aspects of Christianity were always stressed. It seemed very friendly..even though we laughed at it.

There is a power struggle now in the CofE as the Anglican African churches gain more power and influence with their extremeist anti gay hate attitudes, and bornagain types like Carey gain more influence...same with the Archbish of York.

Get rid of the state religion and you leave a vacuum for the evangelicals to move in. They are doing it around here.

Better the devil you know I say. Look at the States where there is supposed separation of church and state.

Having been on the receiving end of Evangelical hate in my life as a non straight person...I am always shocked when people make no distinction between different forms of Christianity.

I'm pragmatic really about the issue.

I'm certain the average liberal CofE cleric would have noproblem with gay marriage.

Welllllll...

Please note that I neither endorse nor believe any of this, but...

Society is based around breeding units - children are bred to guarantee continued economic production. Homosexuality runs counter to this idea by offering alternative models to that which says are purpose is to produce: homosexuality itself is ideologically dangerous. The church serves to reinforce society's mode of production and hence promotes heterosexual marriage. It wouldn't be on to go letting people define how to run their own lives independently of the necessity of production. All this becomes internalised and it becomes 'obvious' that homosexuality and homosexual marriage must be frowned upon but without any interrogation of the reasons why.

And I can see their point.

I think the church's ideal is that all gay men should be married, in church, to women, ideally fathering at least a couple of children if they're physically equipped and making those kids go to church, and if they feel like banging blokes on the side, well, they should feel jolly guilty about that and jolly well pray and ask forgiveness and stuff.

Which is NOT discriminatory, when you think about it. Because their ideal is that someone like me should be married, in church, to a woman, ideally fathering at least a couple of children if I'm physically equipped and making those kids go to church, and if I feel like banging other women on the side, well, I should feel jolly guilty about that and jolly well pray and ask forgiveness and stuff.

And they can get stuffed either way.

I - a single heterosexual man in my forties, never married, happy that way - am at least as much of a threat to the institution of marriage as any gay man. I'm *happy* not to be married. I made the decision early and I'm proof you don't need to be married to be content. Any institution like a church has to view people who can live without it (the church) as a threat, because they're an example to the faithful that faith is a mug's game. We're spiritual tax-dodgers, and we're seen to get away with it, well, soon everyone would be at it, wouldn't they?

The only difference is that the church seem less inclined to pick on people like me for some reason.

As for what threat is a gay man to YOUR marriage, Z? None, I feel comfortable saying. However... suffice to say that there's at least one marriage I know of where the right gay man could very definitely be a life-changing threat, if you get my drift. And I'm positive that marriage isn't the only one.

>>Which is NOT discriminatory, when you think about it.


I'm not clear on why not. It allows one group of people to lead happy, fulfilled lives while forcing others into miserable, dysfunctional lives. Surely? Because one sex doesn't fit all.

I've had that complaint.

B