Anglican Mainstream

I posted last week on the British government's announcement that it intends to allow the registration of same-sex civil partnerships on religious premises, if these are happy to allow it. (Currently they can bless before or after the registration, but the registration itself must not take place in a church or synagogue). I saw it as an issue of religious freedom. My argument, essentially, was that the state was seeking to redefine marriage when it had no right to do so. Without actually saying so, I implied that the definition of marriage — a sacred institution — was essentially safeguarded by religious tradition.

 

Speaking on behalf of the bishops of England and Wales, Peter Smith, Archbishop of Southwark and a canon lawyer, said this morning that, indeed, Parliament has no right to alter the definition of marriage — but not because that definition lies with religious bodies. "Marriage does not belong to the State any more than it belongs to the Church," he says, noting that "a fundamental change to the status of marriage" was never envisaged by the Equality Act "or any other legislation passed by Parliament."

 

He describes marriage as "a fundamental human institution rooted in human nature itself" entailing "a lifelong commitment of a man and a woman to each other, publicly entered into, for their mutual well-being and for the procreation and upbringing of children." And as such, he adds, "no authority – civil or religious – has the power to modify the fundamental nature of marriage."