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?

I think the govt just wanted to get through equal civil marriage without provoking too much church ire (they calculated that wrong, didn't they?!).

But of course there is no logical argument why churches shouldn't be allowed to marry same sex couples if they want to. The Quakers want to, so do Liberal Jews. It is only a matter of time till they are allowed. Then others will follow.

I truly believe that within a decade or two we will have moved on from this nonsense and most mainstream churches will be celebrating and supporting lesbian and gay people

LDR - Because despite the end result (marriage) being the same legal thing, we have two ways of going about marriage (civil and religious) and they have different sets of laws governing them. The government will only amend the civil marriage laws, not the religious ones, oreventing same sex couples from marrying in a Church

I like the Daily Mash.

But same sex couples can be married in some churches, no? Quakers support it, don't they?

Why would this change?

No they can't get married in Church full stop, not now, not after this legislation comes into force. Churches/Synagogues etc can perform blessing ceremonies which hold no legal force, if they are amenable to that. Quaker meeting houses already do this, some CofE churches do etc

Quakers and reformed Jews and some others would like to be able to perform same sex marriages in their places of worship. But they legally can't

I think we are talking cross-purposes.

In the vast majority of religious and Christian denominations (but not the majority of church buildings, on account of the C of E being the national religion), no-one can get legally married by the religious official alone. It is really commonplace for the legal bit to get done elsewhere.

This doesn't need to have any impact on religious 'marriage', which has no legal force on its own and which is a religious contract.

There's no reason that can't apply to same-sex couples.

My marriage has exactly the same legal status as the blessings you describe, and trust me, it was a marriage ceremony.

So actually, no-one can legally get married in a church or other religious place in England, unless it takes place in the established Church of England, with a CoE vicar presiding?

Everyone else needs a registrar there anyway to make it legal?

(I think we're getting there!)

Yep.

dopishe - personally, I am sick of heterosexuals telling me that they don't approve of how my children came into the world. I am sick of people asking me and my dp which one of us is the 'real' mother. I am sick of being asked, with slavering glee, how EXACTLY I got pregnant. I am sick of a law that doesn't allow my dp to be recognised as the parent of one of our children.

And I am getting pretty sick of straight people telling me, yawning and eyes rolling, how very BORING and NAIVE and SILLY I am being to dare to ask that UK law gives my family equal status and rights to theirs.

Devora for Equalities Minister.

I am a bit confused now

If you get married in say the Catholic Church, the registrar attends to do the certifcate bits. But doesn't the marriage become legal whilst you are inside the Church? You don't have to go to the registry office as well, unless the Church is not licensed, in which case you have two seperate ceremonies?

But gay couples can't and won't be able to do that. Have a ceremony in a Church with a registrar present which become legal there? They have to go to a registry office/hotel/whatever for a legal ceremony then go to Church for a blessing, which lots of people do, but some people are really upset about not making their marriage vows before God

I agree with Devora completely by the way :)

lilka - that's what a registrar's job is. They can perform a legal marriage in a licensed building. That could be a registry office, or a Catholic church. It's all fine.

Why wouldn't gay couples be able to do that?

If the religion is happy for the registrar to be there, and if civil marriage is legal for all, why not?

A blessing and marriage vows are not the same thing at all.

Sorry, I hope I'm not coming across rudely here, I just don't follow why you think gay people shouldn't get to be married in a religious ceremony, especially if civil marriage were legal for gay people.

I also agree totally with devora!

My Catholic friends tell me the marriage is only legal in civil law if the registrar is there. If the registrar wasn't there, they would still be married, but only in the eyes of the Catholic church. Add to this, the Catholic church does not recognise civil divorces.

It seems that (In England) non-CoE religions can't marry any couples, unless a registrar is present.

Yes, I think that is right - so you'd have to have a civil marriage first, then the religious one. But that would still be important for a lot of people, I think. Increasing numbers of C of E vicars are in favour of gay marriage.

So that's why Lord Carey and Ann Widdicombe are getting so hysterical?

I'm working on it, Gay

I don't think it's only CoE that can perform a legal marriage - think Catholics and Jews can do it too. Everyone else needs a civil ceremony as well.

This actually is an argument about antidisestablishmentarianism. And I never thought I'd need to type that.

Let's say it again, LineRunner. In fact, let's rename the thread: AIBU to be increasingly infuriated that we're yabbering on about gay marriage again when this actually is an argument about antidisestablishmentarianism?

I agree with LRD, but I'd never really thought it through before. I doubt many Muslims think of their civil ceremony down the registrar's office as their wedding, but good luck telling them that the ceremony at the mosque wasn't a "real" wedding.

The issue is the Church of England (and in Scotland the Catholic Church as well as some Church of Scotland churches who are kicking up an almighty fuss and don't need a registrar present). They are discriminating. My answer would be to take away their right to carry out a legal ceremony and thus put everyone on the same footing.

And I say that as a practicing Christian who had a lovely and very meaningful church ceremony. It would have been just as lovely and meaningful if we'd nipped up the road the day before to get the legalities out of the way.

Oh, and my particular church wholeheartedly supports gay marriage but I know of a couple of local ones that are frothing away at the idea. I pray for their misguided wee souls .

Jesus, can you imagine trying to explain this to teenagers in PSHE lessons?

It is labyrinthine.

The why is the governent saying that the new legislation means gay couples can marry in a reigstry office or in another civil ceremony, but not in Church? I know that civil ceremonies in a reigstry office are different from religious ones because there's no religious references legally permitted. But my understanding of the legislation is that the new marriage ceremonies for gay couples must be civil ceremonies - civil ceremonies have specific laws governing them, one of which is that they cannot take place in places of worship, so de facto a gay couple cannot legally marry in a Church even if a registrar is there. They can have a blessing there of course as they can now, but the legal ceremony will have to be a secular one

Sorry for DM link, but good quote in it "At the moment, it is illegal for gay couples to be married in church. The Home Office intends to keep this ban.

Its consultation paper states: ?It would not be legally possible under these proposals for religious organisations to solemnise religious marriages for same-sex couples.?"

That seems very clear to me