AIBU to be increasingly infuriated by the issue of same sex marriage with BOTH sides?

[dopishe]

The whole thing is getting on my nerves now. And I mean both sides of the debate, too. The against who are saying it will wreck society-how exactly? Those who say that it will strengthen relationships of gay people=pull the other one!
As far as I am concerned, civil partnerships and marriage provide equality of financial and legal rights and, whichever a person has, it is up to THEM to make it (relationship) work and cp's and marriage are just titles. So just leave things as they are.

I am absolutely infuriated by The tory party using this issue as pure gesture politics when they do not give a stuff about people's lives and the REALLY important issues like the economy and jobs and things that really matter.

Not saying labour wouldn't be any different, but people, does it matter enough to alter the status quo?

It matters to me that I can't get married (not that I have a partner now but I might in the future). It matter rather a lot. Whatever Cameron's motivations were/are, the end result is a big improvement

However, the new laws are not going to permit Churches/Synagogues/anything else to perform marriages between same sex couples. Unfortunately then this is not going to end in 'equal marriage is legal, celebrate, and that's the end of the matter'. This is either going to end in 'equal civil marriage is not legalised, therefore we'll keep debating this and making more attempts to legalise it until it happens' or 'Equal civil marriage legalised and religious gay couples, Quakers, reformed Jewish organisations etc are all rather unhappy and demand change...so in a few years time, we reopen the issue and make attempts to legalise equal religious marriage where the religious body is willing'. Which is going to result in another slew of OP's starting these threads up again moaning about it all. Cameron's solution is better than partnerships, but it's not going to be enough. He's making the same mistake that Labour did with Cp's - compromising. Not on the same scale, but enough that this is only stage 1 of the equal marriage debate

Lilka how would it stop you getting married? I was under the impression that you could have a religious marriage but the individual who would be performing it have the right to refuse (does that make sense) in the same was the vicar at my parents nearest church will refuse to marry divorcees or christen children of unmarried parents (so guess he'd be a refuser then). Is that not the case?

You could get married in a registry office then have a religious ceremony - which is what everyone who's not CofE (or Catholic, too?) have to do anyway.

Currently a registrar attends a Cathloic church wedding and signs the register. There is a charge for this. I just googled it and one woman was complaining of £400!

Librarians - No, the new laws do not affect religious marriage - meaning that no Church will have the option of making the marriage legal. This only affects civil marriage ie. marriage without religious references as it takes place in a registry office. Friendly Churches (or any other religious body) could bless the couple in a blessing ceremony, which I believe some CofE Churches do now as well as Quaker churches and other bodies, but they can't actually perform the marriage, only the registry office or approved premises eg. hotel can.

Personally, I would not desire a religious marriage so it won't affect me. But it is going to upset groups who would like to conduct marriage ceremonies in their religious buildings, and upset religious gay couples who will only be able to have a non-religious ceremony

From the governments consultation document "The key proposals of the consultation are:

• to enable same-sex couples to have a civil marriage i.e. only civil ceremonies in a register office or approved premises (like a hotel)
• to make no changes to religious marriages..."

I don't think that was the wisest decision on their part, it's just creating another unresolved issue which will need bringing up in a future parliament and new legislation to permit equal religious marriages

So Lilka, am I getting this right - churches can't legally perform a marriage for two gay people, even if they want to? That seems really bananas.

That is my understanding of the current proposals yes

See this news article here

Quote - "Some faiths want the Coalition to go further by giving churches the freedom to carry out religious same-sex marriage.....Rabbi Young, who will represent the Movement for Reform Judaism at the conference, said: "The proposal to extend civil marriage to gays and lesbians is greatly to be applauded. However it is not enough. It is a bizarre situation when lesbian and gay rabbis may perform a legal religious marriage for heterosexual couples, but are denied the right to experience that joy for themselves with their partners."

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/27/ed-miliband-religious-gay-marriage-church-synagogue_n_1919046.html

And here

Important to note that the Scottish proposals for equal marriage do include religious marriage. It's the Coalition's plans which don't include

Well that is even stupider than not allowing them at all.

ffs, why?

I mean, if the Church of England wants to be all stuffy, let it. People can then leave it if they want to. But to stop, for example, synagogues or Quaker halls, or progressive churches by law is very odd, to say the least.

YABU OP.

I know Mary

I do think that once equal civil marriage is legalised, it will be much easier to introduce new laws permitting licensed religious buildings to perform marriages. I think it will be hard to come up with any arguments why a licensed Synagogue for example should not be allowed to marry two people when they could get married in a regisrtry office anyway. Easy for them to say "religious discrimination" as well. Or maybe I'm naive and the CofE/Catholic Church will pull off another large opposition campaign!

This was just to appease the CofE in the first place, so they couldn't claim they would be forced to perform them. Not that it's worked, they're all going round claiming they'll be forced to marry gay couples within 5 minutes of the law taking effect anyway

I have to admit (sorry) that I'm actually not following the finer details of this.

In Ireland, you can get married in a Christian church with just the priest/vicar/whoever, OR you can get married in a registry office. I'm not certain if we have travelling registers, or registered places for civil ceremonies, I must check.

We are years behind you in everything to do with "different to the so-called Roman Catholic norm" though.

I never could understand why they had civil partnerships in the first place, and of course because I'm not involved I haven't taken the time to find our properly, sorry.

This is really showing me how ignorant I am about it all.

Oh really don't worry Maryz, I don't understand all marriage laws either!

Currently in England and Wales (I don't know about Scotland since their parliament can make their own marriage legislation) you can only get married in a licensed building. That is, CofE and CofW Churches, registry offices, and any other licensed religious or non-religious premises eg. A licensed Catholic Church, Synagogue or for a civil marriage, some hotels are licensed among other venues

Some religious buildings aren't licensed/approved - in my area a lot of, I think Hindus, Sikhs or both, have to legally marry in registry offices because their local Temples/Gurdwaras are not licensed buildings. It might affect other denominations/relgiions a lot as well. They then have a religious ceremony which holds no legal weight

We have both civil and religious marriage. Religious marriage takes place in a religious building (obviously!) and if a CofE/W Church, you don't need a registrar present, for any other religous body, eg. Catholic Church as a PP said, you do. The ceremony will obviously be religious in nature

Or you can get a civil marriage. These do not take place in religious buildings, and are conducted by a registrar. Civil marriage ceremonies can not (legally) include any religious references or practice so you cannot make vows before God in a civil ceremony

The new legislation would permit gay couples to have a legal civil marriage ceremony in a registry office or other approved building eg. hotel. It's not going to allow us to have religious marriage ceremonies complete with vows before God etc

Does that make sense?

Isn't it interesting how arcane and confusing it all is?

The established churches must bloody love that. More control for them.

It's a bit mad that

I mean, I understand what you are explaining, I just don't understand why.

So Christian churches (mostly) can use priests to do the civil part of the marriage as well as the religious.

But other churches (who would be happy to marry gay people) can't.

That surely isn't fair.

MaryZ, if I am correct in my understanding of what has been said on the thread, In England (where I live) it is only Church of England vicars/priests who can carry out the civil part of the marriage ceremony along with the religious part.

All other denominations and religions have to have a registrar present, on or off religious property. (Is this right??)

The proposed new law will say that marriages will be able to take place for gay couples, but only in civil contexts, with a registrar.

I've confused myself now.

LineRunner - Yes, CofE (or in Wales, the CofW) can perform marriages with only the vicar, I think because of the status of the CofE as established state religion, but any other religion or denomination of Christianity must have an official registrar present for the marriage certifcate signing

And any civil marriage must be conducted by a registrar, without any religious content or references, and cannot be held in a place of worship.

Are we therefore disestablishmentarians?

To be fair to the established churches (or some of them), when I got married the Orthodox church wasn't licensed and we had to have a registry office wedding the day before, for the legal side. But the Orthodox priest fucked up and didn't get approval to have even a blessing in his church, so the vicar at my local CofE church not only let us camp out there (and dress his church up like an orthodox church), he also waived the fees.

Just saying', they're not all bad.

Ah, that makes sense. Here it is Catholic or other "established" churches, i.e. CofI, Presbyterian, Methodist whose ministers can marry people in church.

I think all of them refuse gay marriages anyway, though many (not the Catholic ones) do blessings after a civil partnership celebration.

I really, really don't get why you can't do half and half, for all the people who want to cover their arses with God where one of the couple is religious, the other isn't. So have a civil marriage, in a hotel, with a few prayers as part of it to keep the parents happy But that isn't relevant to this thread I suppose.

It all seems very, rule-y, somehow. With different rules in different countries, different churches, even different parts of the UK.

LRD, my mind is melting now. If you and your DH were already legally married, why would your Orthodox church need need approval to carry out a religious blessing? Approval from whom?

The bishop. It's two systems - canon law and civil law (do they still call them that?). But the Orthodox bishop didn't consent to the priest giving us a blessing in his church, so we couldn't have had the religious ceremony of the marriage.

Lots of churches would refuse to perform any religious ceremony for a couple who are already legally married. I think that's why making legal marriage an option for everyone would be best - churches can still refuse to add their own ceremonies, but that puts everyone on a more level playing field, at least.

Three good reasons for equal civil marriage:

1. It provides equality in the law. I understand that it doesn't seem like a big enough change from civil partnership to justify the fuss for many people, but it still needs to be ironed out. it's like the reform to allow gay men convicted of consensual 'sex crimes' in the years before homosexuality was legalised: only a small number of people affected by this, but it was The Right Thing To Do.

1. It allows gay people to be married without having to come out every time they fill in a form...

1. It allows transgender people to transition without having to get divorced, if they don't want to.

And to emphasise again: this is about civil marriage; there is NO proposal to make churches marry gay people. In fact, churches are not allowed to marry same sex couples even if they want to.

I agree that disestablishmentarianism is the way forward.

I agree with those, devora, especially 2 which seems hugely important. But why won't churches be allowed to marry same-sex couples?

I don't think churches should be allowed to marry straight couples (legally) when they can't marry same-sex couples.

This is hilarious:

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/holocaust-survivors-rally-round-church-of-england-2012101044438