{"id":1713,"date":"2011-10-18T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T15:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2011-10-28T19:39:43","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T18:39:43","slug":"christian-voice-takes-stand-for-male-primogeniture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/christian-voice-takes-stand-for-male-primogeniture\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Voice Takes Stand For Male Primogeniture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>News<\/a> that David Cameron is supporting changes to the laws regulating the crown\u2019s succession was met with a firestorm of protest by lobby group, Christian Voice.<\/p>\n

The activist organization claimed that the current laws, which give preference to firstborn males, are rooted in the Bible and cannot be changed without seriously compromising the integrity of the monarchy.<\/p>\n

In a public announcement on 18 October, Christian Voice pledged to take all possible action to block the proposed changes, which seek to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement.<\/p>\n

The group also said that they were putting together a Parliamentary Briefing Paper outlining the legal and scriptural reasons for maintaining the current rules.<\/p>\n

The present laws of succession, rooted in traditions going back at least to the time of the Norman invasion, were condemned by David Cameron last week as \u2018an anomaly\u2019 that allegedly helps to \u2018enshrine male superiority.\u2019<\/p>\n

Although the previous Labour government supported a change to the rules, it was not until the lead-up to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that the issue was again thrust into the national limelight. Policy makers began to point out that if the royal couple\u2019s first-born child happens to be female, it would be unfair to deprive her of the throne. Leicester East MP Keith Vaz even went so far as to argue that the present rules constitute a case of \u2018sex discrimination.\u2019<\/p>\n

Robin Phillips, press secretary for Christian Voice, commented today, \u201cFairness isn\u2019t the pertinent issue here. An hereditary monarchy is already about as unfair as you can get. If we were to alter the succession rules in order to not \u2018discriminate\u2019 against firstborn females, then it would be hard to answer those who are using similar arguments to suggest that the monarchy should be completely abandoned. A representative of the anti-monarchy group Republic recently wrote me saying, \u2018once we concede the principle that the throne should be open to women, the debate will raise a lot more questions: why not a second born daughter? Why not someone else\u2019s daughter? So, we are looking forward to this debate to enable us to highlight the unfairness of the hereditary principle in and of itself.\u2019 If we begin pandering to the idol of equality and political correctness, we may find that we have inadvertently unlocked a Pandora\u2019s box that can only culminate in ceding ground to those republicans who wish to dissolve the monarchy completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillips pointed out that \u201cCritics of male-preference primogeniture often speak about it as a simple matter of getting the Commonwealth countries to agree to amend the Act of Settlement. What they normally fail to take into account is that the Act of Settlement was only legal in the first place because it was rooted in centuries of English common law. Tampering with the common law in order to meet the demands of political correctness is something that William Blackstone warned against back in the 1760s when he wrote his Commentaries on the Laws of England.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the Queen having \u2018let it be known\u2019 that she supports such a change<\/a>, Mr Phillips replied, \u201cHer Majesty the Queen is certainly free to support the present proposals if she so desires. However, we must not forget that her fundamental obligation remains to be \u2018ever mindful of the Law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes.\u2019 Her primary responsibility as our sovereign is to conform the monarchy to the standards of God\u2019s laws. We will be arguing in our briefing paper that scripture supports male preference primogeniture and we trust that Her Majesty the Queen will take our arguments seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister will raise the issue for discussion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting later this month. If his proposals are eventually implemented, then a first-born daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge could become Queen.<\/p>\n

Further Reading<\/h3>\n

Gender Equality Takes Centre Stage<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News that David Cameron is supporting changes to the laws regulating the crown\u2019s succession was met with a firestorm of protest by lobby group, Christian Voice. The activist organization claimed that the current laws, which give preference to firstborn males, are rooted in the Bible and cannot be changed without seriously compromising the integrity of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[199,7,196,200,192,193,195,198,197],"class_list":["post-1713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","tag-act-of-settlement","tag-david-cameron","tag-her-majesty-the-queen","tag-kate-middleton","tag-male-primogeniture","tag-prince-william","tag-robin-phillips","tag-succession-laws","tag-william-blackstone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Robin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/robin\/"},"rttpg_comment":6,"rttpg_category":"Feminism<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"News that David Cameron is supporting changes to the laws regulating the crown\u2019s succession was met with a firestorm of protest by lobby group, Christian Voice. The activist organization claimed that the current laws, which give preference to firstborn males, are rooted in the Bible and cannot be changed without seriously compromising the integrity of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}