Aibu to think that sueing the church over gay marriage is not acceptable?

[Orlux]

Here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2383686/Millionaire-gay-fathers-sue-Church-England-allowing-married-church.html


I supported the right of gay couples to have same rights as heterosexual ones, but I feel this is going to far. Plus my religious friends (I'm agnostic) are now having a go at my naivety.

[WilsonFrickett]

I don't really see why so many posters are surprised by this. The new law has lots of protection for churches within it, but how law works is that test cases are brought to test the law in practice. That's all that's happening here, it was 100% always going to happen as soon as the new law came in.

If the new law has been framed and written properly then the case will not be successful and the law will have been 'tested' and shown to give the protections intended. But it will be quite a 'big' case, and I imagine it will go quite high up in terms of appeals etc, again because that's what test cases do.

Now, I've read the Fail article and I've read a lot about this couple over the years, I may be doing them a disservice but they don't come across as very nice. That said, they are apparently wealthy and are bringing the case themselves, ie it's not backed by any of the official gay rights organisations. That suggests to me that the organisations don't think the case will succeed, and that these two have money to burn and like the free publicity for their surrogacy agency

[EmpressOfTheSevenOceans]

Well, there's the Metropolitan Community Church, for a start. Christian church established by the gay community some years ago, now international.

DW and I wouldn't want to be married anywhere we weren't welcome.

The marriage for procreation thing though... First, that means that when my widowed granny remarried in church in her 70s she was doing it under false pretences. Second, since my friend knew she was infertile when she got married in a cathedral, she shouldn't have done it either. Tut.

As for Adam and Eve, looking at most of the partnerships in the OT - Leah tricked Jacob into marriage, Rebecca egged her son on to lie to his dad, Delilah cut Samson's hair - and Adam and Eve just seemed to want to drop each other in shit with God - I'd take David and Jonathan or Naomi and Ruth any day.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

'Renting women's wombs to have kids and deliberately and with forethought deny those children a mother sounds abhorrent to me. I'm not religious at all, but they make my stomach churn.

Mind you, if a gay man wants to co-parent with his child's mum, fair enough.'

Your views disgust me. At least it's clear now why you have no problem with the way (some parts of) the church treats gay people.

[SoupDragon]

BTW, welcome to MN, Orlux.

[SirRaymondClench]

Outraged - when I was first getting married I couldn't get married in my local Catholic church because I did not attend regularly and also my H2B was not Catholic. I accepted it because they are the rules of the church.
I did not sue.
The second time around, both me and my H2B were divorced and also did not regularly attend the church.
Again I did not sue, because those are the rules of the church and I respect that.
I did not stamp my feet and sue and phone the Daily Mail and demand they rewrite the Bible to suit me, me, me.
Get the picture?

[SirRaymondClench]

Like it or not Outrage, in the case of this couple, renting wombs is exactly what they did and if you knew the extent they went to to make sure they picked the best looking, most intelligent etc you'd be disgusted too (hopefully). You can't have one rule for one and one for for another and then spew vitriol.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

'Get the picture?'

Yeah, you're a real good egg SirRay, the catholic church are lucky to have you!

[MidniteScribbler]

Oh gee, I've disgusted Orlux. How can I ever live with myself?

And yet despite your views, my church welcomed my donor conceived son with open arms as a member of the community.

[Toadinthehole]

This debate seems to miss the important point that they are apparently regular church attendees.

This is not a case of some secularist up for a bit of trouble-making. This is a case of people within the church asking for their relationship to be recognised. There are plenty of people in the pews, and priests too, who would be quite happy to do this if the law allowed.

I hope their day in court goes well, although they will inevitably lose.

[SoupDragon]

Orlux, what made you join MN and choose this as your very first topic to post on?

[TabithaStephens]

What purpose does forcing churches to marry people they don't want to marry serve? Does it change anyone views? No. Does it make people resentful of the government and further entrench their views? Yes.

[SirRaymondClench]

Maybe she/he NC Soupdragon?

[SirRaymondClench]

Outrage - I don't go to church, read up ^

[OutragedFromLeeds]

SirRay I don't know those men, but this isn't about them specifically. It's about religious institutions hiding discrimination behind 'it's my belief/baby Jesus told me so' bullshit.

(and also now about surrogacy it seems).

[OutragedFromLeeds]

'Outrage - I don't go to church, read up'

So why did you want to get married there?!

[SirRaymondClench]

That is how churches work and if you don't like that (and many people don't) then you don't get married in them. I think that applies to all of us does it not?

[Orlux]

Why not post on it, SoupDragon; it's important to bring this to people's notice.

I agree that gay couples should be allowed civil marriage. Marriage is portable while civil partnerships are not, marriage provides pension rights etc etc etc. I can fully understand why gay people want legal marriage. Fair enough. Indeed a friend said that marriage was important as civil partnerships were hard to understand.

But religious marriage? No way.

This is the road to totalitarianism and it should be opposed.

[MidniteScribbler]

What impact do you feel that a gay couple getting married in a church is going to have on your life?

[SirRaymondClench]

Outrage - the first time I enquired I was young, and I did go to church but didn't live in that parish (the area my parents lived) any more.
Second time around I didn't want to get married in church but I also knew the rules of the church.

[SirRaymondClench]

Outrage - do you want to get married in a church? Are you religious? Do you go to church?

[SoupDragon]

Why not post on it, SoupDragon; it's important to bring this to people's notice.

You missed the point. Why make the effort to join MN for this?

[Orlux]

If any religious organisation want to marry gay people; their choice.

But forcing one to do it is quite another.

I don't like it, my gut doesn't like it, it doesn't quite know exactly why it doesn't like it yet, but it does.