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They want to have their cake and eat it.

In England, the official state church, The Church of England, has just declared it will not conduct same sex marriages. As I see it, as His Majesty's Government had approved same sex marriages, His Majesty's Church should be obligated to conduct them. If they don't like it, they should withdraw their unelected represenatives from Parliament and ask His Majesty to step down as head of their little club. Then they can continue on an equal footing with other religious groups.
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GeistInTheMachine · 31-35, M
This is why I at least applaud the US for Separation of Church and State, If nothing else.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@LeopoldBloom no. Quite the opposite. It's homogenized the religions. It must do so for any social brainwashing to work. Hence the commercialization of religion on to TV!

Religion is about control over the population. And why a few of the founding fathers of the USA were so leary of religion. It wasn't just England. The crusades as well!
@DeWayfarer A recent survey shows that religious participation in the US is plummeting for various reasons. In a generation, the US will be where Europe is now.

https://similarworlds.com/religion/4983956-Why-Americans-are-leaving-religion-Everyone-has-a-theory-but
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@LeopoldBloom I would like to believe that. Yet look at the maga crowd! 🤷🏻‍♂

It's bigger than even that though.

All the left has done is lower the fat content. It's still homogenized milk.

What we have now is like: whole raw milk,
whole homogenized milk,
2% homogenized milk,
1% homogenized milk and
no fat homogenized milk.
Heck even lactose free homogenized milk.

It's still all milk!

It's not really weening ourselves off of religion. Some make a substitute; call it almond milk!

It's still a substitute for MILK!

BTW I brought up this very lowering of religion myself. It's the way survey's are conducted that gets it wrong.

They don't look outside of the religious box. They think themselves as unbiased, while conducting the survey within the restrictions of the homogenized religion.

The whole is still religious. The basic social values are from the same religions. The milk is still milk.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
Neither the Government nor Parliament can tell the Church of England how to conduct its affairs. That separation of Church and Government, though less so of State, to the position of the Church having only a small, apolitical representation in Parliament, has been achieved over the centuries for very good reasons.

The Sovereign is still the Head of the Church of England, but the title is more or less just honorary now and neither can tell the other how to behave.

(Queen Victoria probably caused a lot of mysoginist old male clerics to become very hot under the dog-collar when she used chloroform to ease her labour pains, but they could not really criticise the boss!)

The Church's stance on same-sex marriages is entirely its own business, it has to reflect the general sensitivities of its congregation, and such couples are free to marry elsewhere.

It has to tread a very fine line: if it becomes too modern too rapidly it risks deep schisms. It had enough problems persuading its flocks to accept female priests, with considerable opposition from hard-line Anglicans, especially in countries less tolerant of females and homosexuals than we are in Britain.

++++

[A couple of years or so ago some para-Christian type on here became very angry with me, eventually blocking me, because I had revealed a friend who had become ordained as a priest, happens to be a woman! Ironically, my critic was also a woman.]
SW-User
I’ve never met anyone who associates the Anglican Church with the government. Actually we forget all about it.
When preaching in eighties, a lot of my short addresses were based round the pre exilic prophets. Some saw them as an attack on Thatcherite greed and selfishness. I was a fundraiser for one of crypts near cardboard city.
The only time I said anything remotely connected to the establishment, was in saying the state prayers What is wrong in that, Elizabeth was a magnificent queen and herself a Christian. We are added to prey for other Christians. As for her family, they were troubled, as are most families.
At times parliament has stepped in to prevent change , such as the failure of the 1928 prayer book.

But this is a Church of England of the past. And it should be disestablished. Why do all those woke bishopesses sit in the House of Lords. Who do they represent?. It is offensive to call God he, says fat Cottrell Archbishop of York. It is good to be gay, yes, but not to be divorced and remarried.
And we are multicultural, six million Hindus and Muslims too. How are they represented , if at all.
SW-User
@Sharon Thanks to spot that , asked instead of added of course.
Sharon · F
@SW-User It was the work "prey" I was referring to.
Lynda70 · F
@Sharon "word", not "work". :(
Convivial · 26-30, F
Another Henry the VIII moment perhaps..
To be honest it sounds more like you want to eat the cake and prevent anyone else from making any more.

Also I love that's it's now "The England"
Lynda70 · F
@Tinkles I have no problem with any other regligous group declining to conduct same (or even opposite) sex marriages but the CoE, specifically, holds a preferential position in England. That position allows it to appoint its own, unelected, representatives to Parliament. No other religious group has that right.

If the CoE want to retain its preferential position, it should be required to accept additional responsibilities, including conducting same sex marriages. Alternatively, it should forsake its preferential position so it only has the same rights and responsibilities of any other religious group.
@Lynda70 Elected MPs make up the house of commons, usually referred to as parliament, the are elected by geographical areas containing similar numbers of the electorate. Absolutely nothing to do with the CoE.

The house of lords are all unelected but can be overruled by the commons so are there to act as a buffer and advise the commons on the affects of voted legislation, and they all hold peerages, nothing to do with appointments by the CoE, I believe membership is granted by the royal family at the advice of the PM. Even CoE Bishops are appointed by the PM, so the CoE doesn't even really choose its own leaders!
Lynda70 · F
@Tinkles The House of Common is the Lower House of Parliament. The House of Lords is the Upper House of Parliament, where, inter alia the unelected representatives of the CoE sit. The monarch (head of the CoE) appoints bishops on the advice of the PM who, rubber stamps the CoE's list of nominees. The exception in living memory was when Margaret Thatcher opposed Jim Thompson’s nomination as Bishop of Birmingham,

Whatever the precise mechanism, the fact remains that the CoE holds a privileged position compared to all other religious groups. That privilege should come with obligations.
Disagreement between the Commons and the Lords Spiritual...

Not surprising that the CoE would assert its rights over this terrain.
Midlifemale · 61-69, M
The Catholic church also bans same sex marriages and won't employ gay people. Just common sense.
@caesar7 There's just as much "deviance" in religion as there is in every other organization. What needs to end is the hypocrisy. Religious leaders tell everyone else that gay sex is a sin while they're engaging in it themselves.
caesar7 · 61-69, M
@LeopoldBloom I agree...there is deviance in every religion. Priests, ministers, and the like are all guilty of them and they should be excommunicated for doing so and for not following the doctrine of the religion.
@caesar7 It's not limited to religion. The same thing happens in business, entertainment, academe - pretty much anywhere powerful men are in charge and are not held accountable.

The problem with "excommunication" is that the men in leadership roles who would normally handle this are instead facilitating or even participating in these abuses. So what ends up happening is that ordinary members leave the religion. I wouldn't say that the overall decline in religious affiliation across all denominations is due to leadership's hypocritical tolerance of pedophilia, rape, and other abuses, but it certainly isn't helping. However, as an atheist who views the influence of religion on society as mostly negative, I don't have a problem with this. The fewer children there are in church, the fewer will be raped by clergy.
Umm... how is this different to the teachings of the Catholic church???
Lynda70 · F
@HootyTheNightOwl The difference is that the Catholic church is a members club, the CoE is the official state church with its own, unelected, representatives in Parliament.
@Lynda70 Without the monarch at its head, there would be no CoE - you do understand it's history and how it was formed, right???

Just because the government approves of same sex marriage, it doesn't mean that the church has to bend its own beliefs and teachings in order to conduct same sex wedding ceremonies... there's no shortage of places to marry that don't include churches.

Do I agree with the churches stance on this??? No, but the only way that anyone can change it is to buy a church privately and conduct blessings of same sex marriages of their own accord. Fortunately, you don't need any special requirements to do this.
Lynda70 · F
@HootyTheNightOwl Having the monarch as its head give the CoE a preferential position. It could still exist as a religious organization, equal to any other, without the monarch as its head and without its unelected representatives in Parliament. HMG approves same sex marriages so HMC(oE) should conduct them.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
Unfortunately religion always sticks it's ugly head in government. Government first started because of religion. And that's all governments, including Chinese taoism and atheism in Russia which now back to a form of Catholicism.

Putin BTW actually claims to be the Russian form of Catholic. And homosexuality is not tolerated in Russia. China is likewise.
RedBaron · M
The actual saying, and the only way it makes sense, is “Eat your cake and have it too.”
Seems like if you let them fiddle each other they’l leave the choirboys alone…
SW-User
Let them eat cake
in10RjFox · M
It is actually stupid to expect The church or any institution conduct any wedding for that matter. It's just a simple ceremony of oath and in the modern world it's just a registered contract or MOU.

So it's for people to elevate their thoughts and not just blindly follow traditions. In fact I see many get wedded because of the ritual, not because they want to live together. 🤣
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@jshm2 The Episcopal church is the U.S. version of the Anglican church, and it not only allows same-sex marriage, it allows gay pastors. Gene Robinson was a gay Episcopal pastor who was married to another man.

If you don't like a church's stance on same-sex marriage, you're free to join another church more to your liking. Over here we also have the Westboro Baptist Church, which is organized around nothing but hatred of gay people.
Lynda70 · F
@LeopoldBloom I object to the fact that the CoE holds a privileged position as the official state church but refuses to implement government policy. If it wants the freedom to make its own rules it should give up its privileged position.
@Lynda70 Good point. If it wants the authority of being the official government religion, it should follow the government's dictates.

It's interesting to contrast the differences between the U.S., which at least nominally has separation of church and state, and the many European countries that have official state churches. While religious participation in the US is declining, it's still way above what you find in Europe. This may be because the best way to destroy a religion is to turn it into another boring government bureaucracy.
SW-User
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