Anglican Mainstream

Lisa Severine Nolland PhD

This bill, which claims to be about ‘equality’, is actually anything but ‘equal’!  In fact, in a stroke of genius à la Orwell, terms are deployed to manipulate public opinion and ensure certain outcomes.  The process is rushed and truncated, with those with other views ridiculed and marginalized.  Winning is what counts!  On closer inspection, however, the terms used mean either something rather different or the complete opposite.  ‘Equal’ marriage is the one thing SSM is not!

1/ Re-Definition of Marriage for Everyone

2/ EM = ‘Open Marriage’ = Terminated Marriage   

3/ Marriage Despisers Like Peter Tatchell Now Demanding EM

4/ The Lack of ‘Equality’ for Polygamous and Polyamorous ‘Marrieds’

5/ And What About the Children? Read the rest of this entry »

From Coalition for Marriage

Over 660,200 have signed the petition so far.  Please add your signature and encourage others to do the same.

SIGN HERE

Various information resources and campaign updates may be downloaded from here

What society needs is action to strengthen marriage, not to create an alternative to it. Civil partnerships for heterosexual couples would amount to “marriage lite” and would undermine the more valuable original. Civil partnerships were introduced to fill a vacuum — a vacuum that does not exist for men and women. Marriage has been their possibility for millennia…..The number of people cohabiting in the UK has doubled since 1996 to 5.9 million people. In the 1960s 1 in 50 adults cohabited. It is now 1 in 6.

This would not be a drama if outcomes for marriage and cohabitation were similar, but they are not. Whereas fewer than one in ten married parents separate by the time a child is 5, as many as one in three unmarried parents split…..nearly half of all children born today will experience family breakdown by their 15th birthday. With fatherlessness a growing problem, this failure wreaks havoc, particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

So those who want to stem this tide and strengthen marriage should resist the temptation of a diluted alternative.

Begin with tackling the “Hello! wedding” culture, which intimidates those on low-to-average incomes (where aspirations to marry are no less strong) and fuels the average price tag of £20,000. Deal with the dangerous anti-couple signals in our welfare system, which tell those on lower incomes that they are financially better off living apart than together. Recognise marriage in the tax system, primarily as a poverty-fighting tool, starting with those who have young children and who want to make a choice in the early years. The to-do list goes on.

We need a united rescue mission, not a competitor to marriage. Backing its unique stability is about fighting disadvantage and poor life chances. Recasting civil partnerships as an alternative would be a distraction and, ultimately, undermine that cause. Don’t do it.

Christian Guy is director of the Centre for Social Justice

Read here

Half of MPs vote to reject gay marriage.  Jeremy Paxman presses Maria Miller.  Councillor Mary Douglas talks about legislation of which a 'tinpot dictator would be proud'. 

Watch here (available until 11:19pm Mon, 27 May 2013

By Peter Dominiczak, Telegraph

Jeremy Paxman, the veteran BBC presenter, has revealed that he has heard senior Tories describe activists as “swivel-eyed loons”

The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers disclosed on Saturday that a member of David Cameron’s inner circle had described Conservative association members as “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

Speaking during his BBC Newsnight programme, Mr Paxman said that he had been present when high-ranking Tories had used those terms to describe local party members.

Mr Paxman’s comments are sure to increase the pressure on Mr Cameron over the issue, which has caused deep divisions in the Tory Party.

The Prime Minister yesterday attempted to assure party members in an email that neither he nor his inner circle would ever “sneer” at them.

Mr Cameron did not refer explicitly to the “mad, swivel-eyed loons” remark, but insisted that he admired and respected his party’s activists.

Interviewing Tory activist Binita Mehta on his programme last night Mr Paxman said: “What about this swivel-eyed loon[s]…that such language can be used by people near the centre of the party about people who get the party elected?”

He added: “I have heard senior members of your party talking about local activists in these terms.”

Read here

Read also:  The big winner of last night's gay marriage vote is the metrosexual establishment by Cristina Odone

From Cranmer (first read Paul Goodman's article here)

[...]  The vast majority of Conservative Party members – along with discerning Conservatives like Paul Goodman, Sir Gerald Howarth, Edward Leigh and David Burrowes – fully appreciate that same-sex marriage is a threat to religious liberty: it is simply not possible to sustain two competing equalities; one must give way to the other.

Gordon Wilson, former leader of the SNP, has warned that gay marriage will lead to ‘state fascism’. Those who oppose will be cast as bigots, Nazis and fascists ( or 'swivel-eyed loons') ranged against the moderate, enlightened and utterly reasonable proponents. The consequences of Bill are being completely ignored:

“You are summoned to a tribunal where you cannot have a defense lawyer and you cannot record the proceedings nor have a witness present. The people judging and prosecuting you have no legal qualifications. The accusation is ambiguous, having to do with ideas the state does not like. The penalties could include fines equal to several thousands of dollars, public recanting, and rehabilitation classes. You are a bishop. This is not China. This is Canada. The offense: explaining why homosexual relations are a sin.”

So began the address of Terrence Prendergast, Archbishop of Ottawa, to St Thomas University Law School just six months ago. He set out – calmly and rationally – 'the alarming consequences of same-sex “marriage” from the Canadian experience'.

The Archbishop was recounting the true experiences of Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, who received complaints for preaching the Church’s traditional and historic teachings on homosexuality. The complaint was subsequently dropped by the plaintiff, who admitted that he only filed it to get media attention.

Read here

From Christian Concern

Come and join the movement for marriage

Today Christians will gather again outside Parliament as MPs debate the Government's Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. Come and join us if you can at these times:

12-2PM and 5-7PM at Old Palace Yard, outside the Houses of Parliament.

Yesterday hundreds of Christians met up to pray, sing and hear messages from several church leaders. Footage of the gathering appeared on the major news bulletins last night. It was fantastic to see Christians singing We Exalt Thee on the BBC 6 o' clock news!

We've also put together some footage and interviews which you can watch here 

We were greatly encouraged by all this yesterday and would love for you to be a part of it today.

This is a crucial time for our nation. Please pray for God's good design for marriage to be upheld, with us in Westminster if you can or in your local area if you can't come to London.

By Paul Goodman, Conservative Home

No political party should alter a bedrock institution without the following conditions applying – especially if it is the Conservative Party. A sizeable campaign to change that institution should be in place: in other words, there should be real evidence of public pressure. The Party should then discuss and debate the matter internally. If the Party then decides on change, if should say so unambiguously in its general election manifesto. If it doesn't win the election, but enters into Coalition, any commitment to effect that change should be written into the consequent Coalition Agreement. Ideally, any bill enacting the change should be preceded by a Green Paper in which any problematic consequences of the bill could be aired, and solutions thereby sought. Such solutions could then be written into the bill, or tacked on to it by amendments. Finally, the bill should be subject to a geniunely free vote.

Not a single one of these conditions apply to the same-sex marriage bill, on which MPs will vote this evening.

No campaign for same-sex marriage preceded the bill. (Although Stonewall has consistently favoured same-sex marriage, it didn't launch a big campaign for it – at least partly because it thought the Government wouldn't concede it.) There was no discussion within the Conservative Party, especially at local level. There was no manifesto commitment. There was no Coalition Agreement undertaking. There was no Green Paper. There have been no significant amendments – other than Labour's on equal civil partnerships. And there has been no free vote, at least at when it comes to members of the Executive: it has been made very clear to Ministers which lobby the Prime Minister wants them to go into. For these reasons alone, Tory backbenchers should vote against the bill at Third Reading this evening. The way in which it has been introduced and championed has broken every rule of good government and party management.

Read here

From Hansard May 20

I strongly support my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), and I want particularly to home in on two issues: education and the armed forces. First, on education, I think that there is complete confusion. To a certain extent, the right hon. Member for Tottenham put his finger on the point: those who have a view contrary to his will not be allowed to express it in our schools, without being punished for so doing.

Richard Drax May I confirm that the view stated by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is, in essence, a direct attack on free speech in this country, which has been held dear for hundreds, nay thousands, of years?

Sir Gerald Howarth With respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is attacking free speech, but he is professing a view of which ordinary people out there will take note. That is what is leading to the chilling effect, the intimidation—[Interruption.] It is no good the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) looking in astonishment; she should talk to some of the staff in this place and find out how intimidated they feel about expressing a view on these matters. Surely Opposition Members have also had the experience of expressing a forthright view when talking to constituents —I am not politically correct, and given my certain age, I tend to express a forthright view—and of being told that we may say such things but that they cannot do so. They tell me in words of one syllable that they fear they will lose their jobs if they articulate the same view as I express.

Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Gerald Howarth No, I will not give way yet.

The House ignores at its peril the chilling effect that already exists out there—although it is now okay for us to discuss immigration, thanks to the Leader of the Opposition, who has recognised that there is huge public concern and has graciously sanctioned our speaking about it in terms that, in previous times, he might have dismissed as being racist.

There are people out there who will be intimidated by this legislation. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who made the point that, at the end of the day, his assurances, and those of his Front-Bench colleagues, are utterly worthless.

Read here

By John Blake,CNN

When Peter Sprigg speaks publicly about his opposition to homosexuality, something odd often happens.

During his speeches, people raise their hands to challenge his assertions that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but no Christians speak out to defend him.

“But after it is over, they will come over to talk to me and whisper in my ear, ‘I agree with everything you said,’" says Sprigg, a spokesman for The Family Research Council, a powerful, conservative Christian lobbying group.

We’ve heard of the “down-low” gay person who keeps his or her sexual identity secret for fear of public scorn. But Sprigg and other evangelicals say changing attitudes toward homosexuality have created a new victim: closeted Christians who believe the Bible condemns homosexuality but will not say so publicly for fear of being labeled a hateful bigot.

As proof, Sprigg points to the backlash that ESPN commentator Chris Broussard sparked recently. Broussard was called a bigot and a purveyor of hate speech when he said an NBA player who had come out as gay was living in “open rebellion to God.” Broussard said the player, Jason Collins, was “living in unrepentant sin” because the Bible condemns homosexuality.

“In the current culture, it takes more courage for someone like Chris Broussard to speak out than for someone like Jason Collins to come out,” says Sprigg, a former pastor. “The media will hail someone who comes out of the closet as gay, but someone who simply expresses their personal religious views about homosexual conduct is attacked.”

Read here

In an interview with the Big Issue, reported by the Times, Lord Tebbit warned that gay marriage would cause inconsistencies. He said the concept should be expanded to allow relatives to avoid inheritance tax. “It’s like one of my colleagues said: we’ve got to make these same-sex marriages available to all,” he said. “It would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I’d be allowed to marry my son. Why not? Why shouldn’t a mother marry her daughter? Why shouldn’t two elderly sisters living together marry each other?” He added: “I quite fancy my brother!”

The peer also claimed that gay marriage could cause a constitutional crisis when combined with new laws ending an exclusively male royal succession. “I said to a minister I know: ‘have you thought this through?’,” he said. “’Because you’re doing the law of succession, too’. When we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?”

Read here (£)

Today’s New Testament Reading at Morning Prayer in the Lectionary is as follows: Romans 1 18-end:

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

From BBC News

The government's same-sex marriage bill is to receive a third and final Commons reading after surviving resistance from Tory opponents on Monday night.

A proposal – which would have delayed the new law – to also allow straight couples to take up civil partnerships was defeated by 375 votes to 70.

MPs instead backed a Labour plan to consult on civil partnership changes soon – rather than after five years.

Gay couples could now marry in England and Wales as soon as summer 2014.

While MPs gave their support in principle to gay marriage in February, proposed amendments to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill are being discussed over two days with a third reading – the final Commons hurdle – to take place later.

If approved, it is expected to face further opposition when it goes to the House of Lords on Wednesday.
 
'Glaring inequality'

In the Commons on Tuesday, MPs will vote on an amendment to the Marriage Bill, put forward by the Humanist Association, to allow recognised groups to officiate at marriage ceremonies.

Read here

by J Matt Barber, LifeSite News

Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence.

• “DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.” (Italics mine)

By Nicholas Watt, Guardian

Rebel Tories are defeated in Commons after PM's last minute plea to Ed Miliband

The government's gay marriage bill was saved after David Cameron was forced to rely on Ed Miliband to defeat an attempt by his own MPs to derail the measure by trying to extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples.

An 11th-hour plea to the Labour leadership by the Tory chief whip Sir George Young, who warned that the government was in danger of losing the vote, prompted a change of heart by Miliband, who had been planning to abstain on the amendment.

The Labour move meant that the amendment, tabled by the anti-gay marriage Tory and former children's minister Tim Loughton, was defeated by 375 to 70 votes, a majority of 305.

The decision by the Labour leadership, which has gone from supporting the amendment on civil partnerships to rejecting it within the space of 24 hours, means that the marriage (same-sex couples) bill will now experience a safer journey through parliament.

But the prime minister, who attempted to reach out to his party by emailing a "personal note" to all members saying that he would never work with anyone who "sneered" at them, suffered the humiliation of having to plead with the Labour party for support. He also saw more than 100 Tory MPs, including the cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson, vote against him on the first amendment of the day.

The prime minister will understand the dangers of relying on opposition support for a flagship measure after he personally ensured that Tony Blair's schools reforms survived with Tory support in 2006 three months after he became leader. Within months, supporters of Gordon Brown forced Blair to name the date of his departure the following year.

Read here

By George Eaton, New Statesman

Support for UKIP surges to a record high of 22 per cent in the latest Survation poll, with the Tories down five points to 24 per cent.

by George Conger, Anglican Ink

By James Kirkup, Telegraph

[...]  Bear that in mind when you hear the inevitable claims that David Cameron has been humiliated by having to rely on Labour votes to avert defeat over gay marriage, meaning the Prime Minister is weakened and embarrassed. That assessment may well be correct, but probably only for MPs and others in the Westminster village who follow the detail of parliamentary proceedings and political powerplay.

For people outside the bubble, I suspect the key point will be this: David Cameron wants to let gay people get married and now Ed Miliband is saying he does too. (Nick Clegg also, but anyone who pays attention will surely have assumed that anyway.)

So will today’s events change anyone’s mind about the issue? I doubt it. But for those who don’t want gay marriage to be allowed, the fact that the party leaderships are in broad agreement to allow it could well reinforce the feeling that a Westminster-based political elite is trying to enforce its consensus view on the rest of the country.

Because for a lot of people, politics today is not something to participate in. It is something that is done to them, and done to them by a small group of middle-class men in with similar careers, suits and accents. Rightly or wrongly, that group is blamed for people feeling like it’s somehow bad or wrong to think and believe as they do, that, people who disagree with the men in smart suits are “mad, swivel-eyed loons”, or “bigoted” or “clowns”.  (Emphasis ours.)

And anyone who doubts the importance of that view should ask Nigel Farage to explain it to them.

Now the precise level of public opposition to gay marriage – and the intensity of that feeling – is debatable. But there are people who are unhappy, and they each have a vote. And elections are won one vote at a time.

For each of Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg, the die is cast. They have committed themselves to the same course of action on gay marriage and cannot go back.

That being so, there is surely a political prize to be taken by the first leader to appeal convincingly to those who disagree with him, to persuade them that while he does not share their views, he respects them nonetheless.

So far, that prize looks like going unclaimed.

Want to read more about the gay marriage row? Try these:

Read here

From Mass Resistance

If you're looking for some good news – here it is! All eyes are on Illinois.

We've watched the legislatures in state after state capitulate to the well-funded and well-organized "gay marriage" blitzkrieg. This year the final state in the "gay marriage" path is Illinois. But it looks like the "gay lobby" will probably be stopped there by a marvelous pro-family army!
 
Telling it like it is. Pastors' press conference organized by Illinois Family Institute to stop "gay marriage' from coming to Illinois.
 
With only two weeks until the current session ends, it's down to a final vote in the House. After months of intense lobbying, the "no-on-gay-marriage" votes have a pretty strong lead, which actually seems to be growing a bit. It appears from this delay that unless it is clear there are the 60 "yes" votes needed to pass, the leadership will not bring it up for a vote. 

How is this happening with (1) the enormous funding that the gay lobby there has, (2) the incredibly slanted Illinois media pushing for it, and (3) the corrupt nature of Illinois politics? The answer: Hard work, an uncompromising non-mushy attitude, a great coalition of groups and churches, and enough funding from local pro-family donors to do what is necessary.

Read here

While failing in their attempts to amend the legislation in any form, Conservative MPs voiced their concerns in large numbers on a range of issues.

A proposal which would have allowed civil registrars to opt out of presiding over gay marriages on grounds of conscience was backed by 150 MPs – including Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson – although 340 voted against.

In a subsequent vote, 148 MPs supported an amendment to protect the religious beliefs of a person who believes that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman but 349 MPs voted against.

Read here

The Church of Scotland's ruling General Assembly has voted to allow actively gay men and women to become ministers. Assembly commissioners in Edinburgh voted in favour of a proposal that allows liberal parishes to opt out of the church's policy on homosexuality.

The decision will have to be endorsed by the church's regional presbyteries and officially approved next year.

Divisions were caused when the first openly homosexual minister was appointed by the Kirk four years ago. Two congregations and six ministers broke away.

The vote to allow gay ministers in civil partnerships follows a report by the church's theological commission, which set out arguments on both sides.  General Assembly rules dictate it must be approved at a presbytery level and then rubber-stamped at next year's gathering.

Read here