{"id":983,"date":"2011-09-02T17:33:16","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T16:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=983"},"modified":"2011-09-08T22:25:52","modified_gmt":"2011-09-08T21:25:52","slug":"gay-marriage-threat-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/gay-marriage-threat-worsens\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay Marriage Threat Worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Government has started a consultation with the intention of legalising same-sex marriage on the same day as a Conservative MP called for churches to be banned from celebrating marriages at all if they banned similar services for gays.<\/p>\n

The Scottish consultation (find it HERE<\/a>), ‘The Registration of Civil Partnerships\u00a0\/ Same-Sex Marriage – A Consultation’, ends on 9th December.<\/p>\n

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Inside the Scottish Parliament<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The SNP government has already prejudiced the consultation.\u00a0 In the introduction to the paper, deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon, says: \u201cThe Scottish government is choosing to make its initial views clear at the outset of this consultation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend towards the view that religious ceremonies for civil partnerships should no longer be prohibited and that same sex marriage should be introduced so that same sex couples have the option of getting married if that is how they wish to demonstrate their commitment to each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also believe that no religious body or its celebrants should be required to carry out same sex marriages or civil partnership ceremonies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposals come just as the Scottish Social Attitudes\u00a0Survey<\/a> has disclosed that the proportion of Scots thinking that homosexuals have the right to ‘marry’ has increased from 41% in 2002 to 61% in 2010.\u00a0 The proportion disagreeing has gone down from 29% to 19% over the same period.<\/p>\n

Attitude has followed the law.\u00a0 The authors observe: ‘Much of this shift in attitudes has occurred during the last five years – that is, since the introduction of civil partnerships in December 2005, which thus appears to have had a considerable impact on attitudes.’<\/p>\n

In response, we should say, firstly, that allowing such ceremonies to take place in church would allow homosexual activists their first step to having the Church honour their distorted relationships.\u00a0 Respect from the Church is one of only two measures missing for them, their having won everything else.<\/p>\n

(The other missing link in the gay rights chain is a full hate-crimes law to forbid adverse comment on their activities and lifestyle.\u00a0 Under ‘hate-crimes’, Section 74 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 extended hate-crimes legislation in the United Kingdom to homosexuality, but a ‘freedom of expression’ clause inserted against the UK Governments’ wishes allowed ‘discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices, or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices.’)<\/p>\n

Secondly, it is easy to say at this point that religious bodies and ministers would not be forced to carry out same sex marriages or civil partnership ceremonies, but those behind the legislation (the civil servants and gay rights activists in the corridors of power, not necessarily the minister) will be back within a year or two calling on simple logic and the demands of equality to remove that concession.<\/p>\n

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The Chief Constable of Sussex leads the Brighton Gay Pride March as the Union Jack is desecrated<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And right on time to prove this very\u00a0point, step forward the Conservative Member of Parliament for Hove, one Mike Weatherley.\u00a0\u00a0 He has called for churches to be banned from holding marriages if they won’t also carry out civil partnerships for homosexuals.<\/p>\n

Mr Weatherley’s constituency lies in\u00a0Brighton and Hove which has the most same-sex households in the UK.\u00a0 In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron, published today<\/a>, he said:<\/p>\n

‘Several campaigns are currently calling for, variously, the creation of a right to a Marriage for same-sex couples and the creation of a right to a Civil Partnership for opposite-sex couples. Such proposals may seemingly be the next logical step in the campaign for equality but, if enacted, would still leave us with a messy compromise. As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples, there will be inequality. Such behaviour is not be tolerated (sic) \u00a0in other areas, such as adoption, after all.’<\/p>\n

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The shape of things to come...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UK Government, like its Scottish counterpart, is already preparing to bring forward legislation to allow civil partnerships to be conducted on religious premises, something specifically banned in the Civil Partnership Act 2004.\u00a0 This intention on its own shows how equality legislation advances by a Fabian process of creep.<\/p>\n

Gay activists probably hope Mr Weatherley’s extreme intervention will shift the parameters of debate so that the UK Government’s proposal (and for that matter that of the Scottish Parliament) looks reasonable.\u00a0 But instead he has let the cat out of the bag, and shown us what will be done if not under this adminstration then when Labour return to power.<\/p>\n

PRAY<\/strong>: Thank God for revealing the true intentions of the anti-Christian homosexual movement and pray that the churches will take note and arise to tell the governments north and south of the border that we will not accept this attack on the Church of Jesus Christ, that no-one has the authority to over-ride what God has stated in Scripture.<\/p>\n

READ: Mark 10:6\u00a0 (Jesus answered: …) But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7\u00a0 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8\u00a0 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

The Scottish Government has started a consultation with the intention of legalising same-sex marriage on the same day as a Conservative MP called for churches to be banned from celebrating marriages at all if they banned similar services for gays. The Scottish consultation (find it HERE), ‘The Registration of Civil Partnerships\u00a0\/ Same-Sex Marriage – A […]<\/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":[11],"tags":[15,61,7,18,9,64,70,62,63],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homosexuality-trans","tag-christian-voice","tag-civil-partnerships","tag-david-cameron","tag-gay-rights","tag-homosexuality","tag-mike-weatherley","tag-nicola-sturgeon","tag-scotland","tag-scottish-social-attitudes-survey"],"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":20,"rttpg_category":"Homosexuality & Trans<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The Scottish Government has started a consultation with the intention of legalising same-sex marriage on the same day as a Conservative MP called for churches to be banned from celebrating marriages at all if they banned similar services for gays. The Scottish consultation (find it HERE), ‘The Registration of Civil Partnerships\u00a0\/ Same-Sex Marriage – A…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","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=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}