{"id":5499,"date":"2013-03-11T15:26:46","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T15:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=5499"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:39:11","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T15:39:11","slug":"2013mar11queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/2013mar11queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen not ‘fighting for gay rights’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sensationalist<\/a>
Sensationalist and untrue – the Mail on Sunday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite a typical bit of\u00a0sensationalism in the Mail on Sunday<\/a><\/strong>, Her Majesty the Queen will not sign a Commonwealth gay rights charter at Marlborough House tonight.<\/p>\n

The new\u00a0Commonwealth Charter declares: “We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.”<\/p>\n

The Charter is only ‘designed to stamp out discrimination against homosexual people and promote the “empowerment” of women’ in the minds of a few libertarians in Britain and Australia and an editor\u00a0at Northcliffe House with an eye on the market.<\/p>\n

If the Charter had said explicitly ‘grounds of sexuality’ instead of ‘other grounds’ it would have been a gay rights measure, but the Commonwealth is not Westminster, \u00a0or Canberra. \u00a0A\u00a0majority of\u00a0nations still retain elements of historical Biblical morality and a charter with a reference to ‘sexuality’ would never have been agreed by all Commonwealth heads of government in December..<\/p>\n

As the Mail says: “The \u2018other grounds\u2019 is intended to refer to sexuality \u2013 but specific reference to \u2018gays and lesbians\u2019 was omitted in deference to Commonwealth countries with draconian anti-gay laws.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Exactly. \u00a0Except it was only ‘intended’ that way by some of those who stitched the wording together. \u00a0For others, in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean,\u00a0there is not the slightest thought that ‘gay rights’ is a new Commonwealth ideal.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Telegraph observed<\/a><\/strong> that ‘forty-one of the Commonwealth\u2019s 54 nations retain legislation against homosexual acts. In parts of Nigeria and Pakistan those found to have taken part in gay sex can receive the death penalty, in Trinidad and Tobago it can incur 25 years in jail and life imprisonment in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh and Guyana.’<\/p>\n

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of the gay and lesbian rights group Stonewall, described the Monarch, for some reason, as a \u201cfeminist icon\u201d and said: \u201cThis is the first time that the Queen has publicly acknowledged the importance of the six per cent of her subjects who are gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The actual evidence shows the latter figure to be around 1.5% in the West and nearer to 0% in Africa and Asia.)<\/p>\n

For another more balanced view, here is the view of Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor at Sky News<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

‘In her speech the Queen will say: “Our shared values\u2026 which are found in our new Commonwealth Charter – mean that we place special emphasis on including everyone in this goal, especially those who are vulnerable.”<\/p>\n

‘She may say that, but the charter does not.’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong>
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Please note that persons wishing to comment on this story must enter a valid email address. Comments from persons leaving fictitious email addresses will be trashed.<\/p>\n

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

Despite a typical bit of\u00a0sensationalism in the Mail on Sunday, Her Majesty the Queen will not sign a Commonwealth gay rights charter at Marlborough House tonight. The new\u00a0Commonwealth Charter declares: “We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.” The Charter is only […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"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":18,"rttpg_category":"Uncategorised<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Despite a typical bit of\u00a0sensationalism in the Mail on Sunday, Her Majesty the Queen will not sign a Commonwealth gay rights charter at Marlborough House tonight. The new\u00a0Commonwealth Charter declares: “We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds.” The Charter is only…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5499","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=5499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}