{"id":4148,"date":"2012-09-12T13:06:20","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T12:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=4148"},"modified":"2012-09-12T15:31:44","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T14:31:44","slug":"nick-clegg-in-bigotgate-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/nick-clegg-in-bigotgate-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Clegg in ‘Bigotgate’ row"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nick Clegg – ‘What did I just say?’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A red-faced Nick Clegg has had to withdraw remarks he was going to make branding opponents of gay marriage “bigots”.<\/p>\n

A draft of his speech, circulated to the press in advance of Mr Clegg’s speech to be given to a gathering of homosexual activists last night, had the atheist Deputy Prime Minister saying:<\/p>\n

“Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots a stick to beat use\u00a0with, as they demand we ‘postpone’ the equalities agenda in order to deal with ‘the things people really care about’.”<\/p>\n

An hour later, aides were scrambling around trying to recall the press release, and releasing a sanitised version in which ‘the bigots’ was replaced by ‘some people’<\/p>\n

The row brings to mind Gordon Brown’s ‘Bigotgate’<\/a><\/strong> when he described a lifelong Labour supporter, Mrs Gillian Duffy, who happened to mention Eastern Europeans in an exchange on the economy, as ‘just a bigoted woman’.<\/p>\n

At the reception, Nick Clegg said:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Contempt for ordinary people – Gordon Brown was embroiled in his own ‘Bigotgate’ scandal after an exchange on the economy and immigration with Labour supporter Gillian Duffy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘I am a little bit surprised to see cameras outside the gates for the slightly obscure reason that they expect me to use a word about opponents of gay marriage that I had no intention of using, would never use. It is not the kind of word that I would use.’<\/p>\n

Really? Mr Clegg’s speech writers would not write in a word which they knew he would never use.\u00a0 And homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, among the guests at last night’s reception in central London, said: ‘Quite clearly, some people who oppose same-sex marriage do so because of personal prejudice and intolerance.’<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lord Carey of Clifton said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘There will be many Christians and non-Christians who will be highly offended to be called bigots. People who oppose same-sex marriages are doing so on the basis of deeply-held beliefs and we should not be treated in such a way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said:<\/p>\n

‘In a sense, we should be encouraged that Nick Clegg has considered resorting to name-calling, because people normally do that when they realise they have lost the argument.\u00a0 Marriage is God’s holy institution and man may not change its definition.\u00a0 Marriage involves love and committment, but at its heart is its sexual expression, being ‘one flesh’ as the Bible puts it.\u00a0 At the moment, a marriage must be conusmmated to be valid in law, and consummation involves an\u00a0complete act of ordinary sexual intercourse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Between them, a pair of homosexuals lack the full set of necessary equipment for that act. Mr Clegg has so far failed to offer the necessary redefinition of the key concept of consummation in a homosexual context.\u00a0 And any such redefinition will affect marriage for everyone.\u00a0 The Government have received 228,000 responses to their consultation, the majority of them against it, and they are blindly pushing on regardless.<\/p>\n

‘Those in favour of ‘gay marriage’ say that if two people love each other they should be allowed to get married.\u00a0 Does that apply to a brother and a sister, or a uncle and his niece?’\u00a0 Nick Clegg has failed to address that point as well.\u00a0 He and David Cameron have lost the argument and lost their own\u00a0consultation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The fact that they are still stubbornly set on pushing ahead with the destruction of marriage and their proposed use of insulting language shows a contempt for ordinary people as deep as that held by their predecessors.<\/p>\n

‘The dictionary definition of bigot is ‘One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.’\u00a0 Without wishing in any way to insult him, that sounds a fair description of Nick Clegg.’<\/p>\n

A No 10 source said: “The prime minister is committed to getting gay marriage through by 2015.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

More on this story:<\/p>\n

BBC News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cristina Odone in the Daily Telegraph<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

READ: Matt 19:4 And (Jesus) answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0PRAY: That God continues to sow confusion amongst the Government on this issue.\u00a0 Pray also that David Cameron and Nick Clegg repent and pull back from their ungodly position.<\/p>\n

EMAIL: nick.clegg.mp@parliament.uk<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 Search for your MP’s email address HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

  A red-faced Nick Clegg has had to withdraw remarks he was going to make branding opponents of gay marriage “bigots”. A draft of his speech, circulated to the press in advance of Mr Clegg’s speech to be given to a gathering of homosexual activists last night, had the atheist Deputy Prime Minister saying: “Continued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,11,82,86,184],"tags":[234,476,475,15,61,7,18,474,473,9,1539,472,54,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-4148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-christian-freedom","7":"category-homosexuality-trans","8":"category-politics","9":"category-secularism","10":"category-uk-christian-constitution","11":"tag-gay-marriage","12":"tag-bigot","13":"tag-bigotgate","14":"tag-christian-voice","15":"tag-civil-partnerships","16":"tag-david-cameron","17":"tag-gay-rights","18":"tag-gillian-duffy","20":"tag-homosexuality","21":"tag-marriage","22":"tag-nick-clegg","23":"tag-persecution-of-christians","24":"tag-stephen-green"},"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":67,"rttpg_category":"Christian freedom<\/a> Homosexuality & Trans<\/a> Politics<\/a> Secularism<\/a> UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"  A red-faced Nick Clegg has had to withdraw remarks he was going to make branding opponents of gay marriage “bigots”. A draft of his speech, circulated to the press in advance of Mr Clegg’s speech to be given to a gathering of homosexual activists last night, had the atheist Deputy Prime Minister saying: “Continued…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}