The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, will not be able to exempt the Churches from a duty to offer marriages to gay couples, a senior Catholic barrister has warned, according to a report in The Catholic Herald.
Neil Addison, the director of the Thomas More Legal Centre, said that the Prime Minister’s assurances to the Church that they would not be compelled to perform religious marriage for gay couples are worthless.
He said two judgments by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg combined with a Court of Appeal ruling in 2010 clearly showed that the Government would be acting illegally if it legalised civil gay marriages without permitting them on religious premises too.
It means that if the Coalition Government presses ahead with its plans to redefine marriage to include gay couples the Catholic Church could face prosecution under equality legislation for acting according with its teachings.
http://cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=31050
Scary. Harsh. And not going to happen.
It is also spoken of in America. If gay marriage is accepted as the law of the land, then Catholic Churches will have to marry gays. That's untrue.
A few things to remember:
1. Divorce is legal. A divorced person can marry another person civilly. However, the Catholic Church will not marry a "divorced" person until a Church annulment has been granted.
2. A Catholic priest/deacon can perform weddings only for Catholics. We cannot (or we're not supposed to) do weddings for anyone other than Catholics.
3. For a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic, certain conditions must be met. For example, the Catholic has to agree to baptize and raise the children in the Faith.
As you can see, we have been able to and will continue to hold on to our own Catholic marriage requirements. We aren't led by the culture nor inimical to it.
Our teachings on marriage are first and foremost to foster the growth of the faith. Would it be awesome if the WHOLE WORLD was Catholic? Maybe. Ok, yes. But it's not nor do we ever suppose to speak on behalf of the world or at the world. Officially anyway.
Gay marriage is perhaps a social threat. Perhaps not. But it is not going to be a real threat to the sacrament of marriage just as much as we hold that one must be a male to be a priest or one must be Catholic to receive Holy Communion. We have our own teachings for our own. And, from time to time, our own actually follow the teachings!
However, it is interesting that the UK is still able to express outrage over threats to Catholic morality. I almost thought it was just an American thing.
12 comments:
With the current administration forcing Catholics to go against their conscience in providing ABC and abortificant drugs, I do not hold your assurance that this would not be forced on us. There has been a movement in the Church to accept this lifestyle as "normal" and "good" even going to the point of "blessing same sex unions" in some Catholic Churches. I would hope they were disciplined, but it doesn't mean we will not suffer as other countries are. Our conscience protection is not being honored nor protected. It is a horrible reality. Also, with the approving of same sex "marriage" in some states, CC has had to close because they were then forced, yes forced, to adopt to gay couples. This is also why the Bishops have taken on the task of teaching about marriage and gay marriage falling under one of the attacks of religious liberty.
Now, it will be a hard fight in MS. But in general and states like CA, that is not so.
@Anonymous:
Beside the point. The HHR debacle is apple. This is an orange.
No Catholic priest can be forced into marrying anyone who isn't Catholic.
And the basic Sacramental matter for Catholic marriage is one man, one woman.
For all the hand-wringing, notice that with all the discrimination laws, no bishop has been forced to ordain a woman.
In the same way, sticking to marriage, we will not be...cannot be forced to...marry gay couples.
Adoption to gay couples is not the same as validating their marriage sacramentally.
You may want to look at their FB page as we have many gay couples in the church who would ask for this. If they were denied, then why? Although we would not consider it a sacrament, even if a priest were to perform it - against his will - not being forced on us I don't agree with you. State by state, maybe a slow change. The FB doesn't speak of the threat of forcing them, but it is held by those who are watching this, as not a made up threat. (why won't blogger let me comment under my wordpress name? It happens to me on all blogger pages!)
https://www.facebook.com/usccb/posts/342088959186203?comment_id=3451801
We don't do things as a Church out of consensus. There are hundreds of women who may want to be priests and even more married men who want to be. But that's not going to happen.
And you are free to disagree. I just think you're paranoid over something that isn't going to happen.
And I will add this. The gay community is styling its fight and coercive laws after those countries who have already done this. This is where they are getting their support and information. Even acknowledging that strides to strip all male/female pronouns in a Sweden school to help with equality, a good thing. We just need to be aware of this. We also need to be on our toes in knowing that this belief, union of man and wife as being correct definition of marriage, is based in natural law which can be deduced through reason. OR you will be thrown out as pushing your religion on others. I have been in this debate. It is not pretty including some wanting to stripe the church of all tax exemptions because of their opposition. We know that one Bishop is under scrutiny - think Notre Dame - for speaking out against the administration and speaking the truth. We enjoy a lot of things because we live in the South.
Ok. It is not paranoia and comes with this battle tho and their goals. I have asked IF this were to become like this in all states, if the Church were to have to bless marriages after a civil ceremony as one way around it. In that case, they really could not say anything. In the other, it seems people disagree. Also their goal, the gay community, it to do that very thing.
I will loosely outline what I have seen.
Goal 1 - establish communities, religious too, that accept and promote this lifestyle
Goal 2 - fight for same sex unions on the base that most are discriminated against when partner dies, etc. Also because of children they have brought into the union
Goal 3 - as these are largely accepted and seen as normal, show how now it is unjust not to redefine marriage to include them - they are just like heterosexual marriage.
Goal 4 - have any language that promotes inequality removed - making all the same - not separate but equal
Goal 5 - show how demoninations who do not participate in this are unjust and should allow, as they do have gay couples in their community, them to marry - they have permission by state to do that and that will be their point of argument.
As to WILL it happen in the South, some will say "over my dead body" and mean just that.
Those are their goals.
Apples and oranges again.
The Roman Catholic Church will not have to "bless" anything.
At worst, the government does not CARE about us or our "blessing".
At best, we are allowed to do our own thing (no matter how bigoted it seems to anyone else) in peace.
Any bishop who thinks the government will "make" him perform gay marriages thinks way too much of himself. Or is trying to push an agenda.
And if that's the tactic: It looks and smells a lot like bigotry.
That is their agenda, tho. I am sure those who saw and told of what were to happen as the sodomy laws were found unconstitutional were lumped and thought of as paranoid. Ok. Lump me with them.
Will it be as easy to do it here? That is where the debate should be, not that it won't be tried nor pushed in some areas.
We tend to forget that with the LCWR doctrinal assessment, one of the things they have to change is how they minister to people with homosexual tendencies because they have created,not to small, a group of gay couples in Catholic Communities.
Disagree with me on whether or not it will be easy, but not that they aren't going to try it.
And one more thing. IF it is found that a gay couple should not be excluded from a Catholic ceremony if they are Catholic....just allowing blessing WOULD be the only way around that to begin with. And that is how a Catholic couple would have a sacramental marriage and one recognized under law too. It isn't in our State and probably won't. And we do have those who do not understand the basics of marriage and do feel a certain sympathy toward those with homosexual tendencies. This false compassion extends over into how people vote - Catholics I am speaking of.
I was speaking of convalidating marriages when I said "blessing them". Most consider their marriages blessed who go through the ceremony - was using the slang term.
Recently, Barack Obama expressed support for Same Sex Marriages. A lot of Pro Gay groups laud it. While other groups criticized him for it as an election related move.
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