UK to legalise gay marriage, religious exemptions - Page 17

On December 12 2012 04:20 KwarK wrote:

Would you support a church refusing to marry interracial couples on the basis of religious beliefs?

On December 13 2012 06:50 koreasilver wrote:
I like how so many of you simply have not read the OP at all. The theme of this topic isn't about a nonexistent law that will force churches to may gay couples. It's about the implementation of a law that would make it illegal for gay marriage to occur under certain religious establishments.

The main problem I have with this is that the secular law can serve as a weapon for whatever internal camp of a religious sect that wields the most political power at the given moment. It's completely inaccurate and seriously asinine to think that any of the Christian sects in the present day UK does not have debates and dissent when it comes to some of the more popular social questions like gay marriage or the ordination of women. The question of gay marriage, women clergy, and gay clergymen have been such a huge point of debate, dissent, and even division within the Anglican Church all throughout the period of Rowan William's time as Archbishop of Canterbury (he is retiring at the end of this year). So what this law would do is give pretty much complete power to the conservatives and utterly stifle any dissent that may come from the progressives and the liberals. Not only would their dissent be viewed as contrary opinion that can be opposed through orthodoxy, but also something that can be brought to secular court if they go as far as to marry a gay couple as it would be illegal under the law of the nation - and this is just absurd. Imagine how insane it would be if we go back to when that Catholic bishop ordained a number of women as priests and the aftermath of this heresy wasn't only the prompt excommunication of the bishop and the women, but also prosecution for breaking secular law. It's just insane.

edit: You guys are fucking silly "debating" the same tired polemic, ignorant, dumb "talking points" about religion instead of actually looking and discussing the actual goddamned case that has been presented to us in the OP.

On December 13 2012 13:36 hzflank wrote:


People should read this post, or the OP.

This is not an advancement for gay rights in the UK. This does not benefit gay people.

This legislation is designed to protect churches from the courts. Specifically, once this has passed there will be no chance in the future for british churches to face discrimination lawsuits in european courts.

On December 13 2012 12:28 The Irate Turk wrote:
But: the more I think about it, the more the bakery example holds true and this causes many problems if you are religious. A bakery refusing to serve black customers and a religion refusing to marry two men are equivalent positions. The only way someone will be able to defend such a position from a religious standpoint is through revelation or something similar.

I feel that the real point here is that in order to be logically and morally consistent one is forced to conclude that there is no place in society for a religion which would have reservations about performing gay marriages.

Should a bakery should be allowed to refuse to serve someone on the basis of their race? I think if you are sane you fall into one of two camps:

1) No
2) Yes, but only because society will flush the toilet on the bakery without the need for the government interference.

Without getting too sidetracked, either answer works because the end result is the same: the racist baker is out of business one way or the other. And we are happy.

Why are religions against homosexuality and gay marriage? It basically boils do to outdated, morally reprehensible and indefensible viewpoints. Just as we do not exclude a person from a religion because they are black, and the same person shouldn't be excluded because they are gay. It is just really unfortunate (for major religions) that they have explicitly stated their barbaric positions on homosexuality in a way that means followers either have to accept that their major teachings are open to interpretation (a can of worms) or are inflexible (a can of worms).

A point that is made over and over again is that religion has a monopoly on marriage and "the definition of marriage". Even if the history of marriage was linked to religion, we place an emphasis on "getting married" through culture and as a result it would still be fair game to claim it for wider society.

All in all, I am happy that our LGBT brothers and sisters are finally able to get married, but would have much rather preferred for there not to be a "quadruple lock" protecting religious freedom; I think that a church should not have the power to reject a gay couple from getting married and issues like gay marriage are the final nails in the coffin for religion.

On December 13 2012 13:36 hzflank wrote:


People should read this post, or the OP.

This is not an advancement for gay rights in the UK. This does not benefit gay people.

This legislation is designed to protect churches from the courts. Specifically, once this has passed there will be no chance in the future for british churches to face discrimination lawsuits in european courts.

On December 13 2012 19:42 ninini wrote:

The bakery example does not hold true. To sell food is a secular service, which means that you have to follow secular rules of discrimination. Marriage in a church however is a religious service, which means that by our religious freedom, the church should be allowed to decide who to offer their services to.

Anyway. You claim that the church doesn't accept gay marriage, simply because it's outdated, just because you think so. That's your opinion, don't act like it's a fact. Get off your high horses ppl. There's so many faux liberals here. True liberalism is about accepting other ppl's ideas as equal to your own. The church should never be allowed to judge over secular matters like burglary, murder or even secular marriage, but they should have a right to discriminate when it comes to their own services, like religious marriage. Whoever disagrees with me here, clearly doesn't believe in freedom of religion. Don't get me wrong, I don't assume that everybody is willing to accept all concepts of freedom, but that's what I believe in anyway.

Anyway, I don't get some of you guys here. You say that the state never forced the church to accept gay marriage, but at the same time, you very clearly criticize the law because it didn't lead to that, that it didn't lead to the church being forced to accept gay marriage.

Don't let the secular courts judge matters of faith and religion. It


doesn't work, and for that reason, religious institutions should have the right to judge matters of faith, but their power should be restricted to inclusion and exclusion. In other words, a church should have the right to exclude members if they don't accept their rules, and they should also be allowed to deny marriage between parties who don't accept their rules.

On December 13 2012 21:41 KwarK wrote:
ninini, the issue I am having is why secular law doesn't apply to religion in a secular society. It's no stranger to say that baking law should apply to bakeries than religious law to apply to religions. If they are to be granted exemptions from laws that apply to every other group, be it a political party, business, private club or anything else then it must be justified beyond different treatment because they're different. A bakery is different to a political party but it's still held to the same law. Furthermore the convictions of people in political parties are just as strongly held and it is much easier to argue why political affiliation should be unrestricted.

On December 13 2012 23:33 SiroKO wrote:


You're free to choose the religion you want and to not marry at the Church. Moreover, there's no punition for apostasy in Christianity.
So the core philosophical principle of secularism is totally respected.

From a pure legal point of view, as stated above, it's a non-issue.
There's no law obliging the Church to open the religious marriage, a church institution, to homosexual couple.
Making one would probably be against human rights and the right to freedom of association.
Would that bother you, or are you the kind of guy who only promote human rights when they're used as a vector for your own agenda, and who only cares about churches when immigrants are expelled from them ?

On December 14 2012 00:16 tomatriedes wrote:
If all private organizations in the UK are not allowed to discriminate in their membership does that mean MENSA could be forced to allow lower-IQ people to join? Or a club for lesbians forced to allow male members? These examples may sound absurd but I'm not trolling- I think they do raise the question of where the line is (or should be) drawn with such legislation.

The act covers nine protected characteristics, which cannot be used as a reason to treat people unfairly. Every person has one or more of the protected characteristics, so the act protects everyone against unfair treatment. The protected characteristics are:

age
disability
gender reassignment
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation

The Equality Act sets out the different ways in which it is unlawful to treat someone, such as direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, victimisation and failing to make a reasonable adjustment for a disabled person.