Gay Marriage Final Draft

FOLLOWING heating comments from the former Archbishop of Canterbury the government has planned to launch a 12 week consultation on allowing gay couples to marry. Civil partnerships, which were introduced in 2005, already give gay couples similar legal rights to that of married couples.

However, both the government and gay couples feel that they should be legally allowed to marry and declare vows of commitment to each other. 

The Home Office’s Consultation Paper proposes:

1.     To allow marriage to happen between same-sex couples in a registry office

2.     To retain civil partnerships for same-sex couples and allow couples already in a civil partnership to convert it into a marriage

3.     To allow people to legally change their gender and stay married

4.     To maintain the legal ban on same-sex couples marrying in a religious service

Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said: "We're not looking at changing religious marriage, even for those that might wish to do it. I understand the liberal Jews, the Quakers and some unitarian churches would like it, but that's not in the sight of this consultation."

Labour welcomed the proposals but said they did not go far enough. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Religious marriages are a matter for each church and denomination, not for the government. But equally, the government should go further than they currently plan.

In a letter being read in 2,500 parish churches, the Church's two most senior archbishops say the change would reduce the significance of marriage.The letter says Roman Catholics have a duty to make sure it does not happen. The letter ends by telling Catholics they have a "duty to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations".

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The Cloud spoke to Joe Marston, a 18 year old gay man from Bodmin, to find out his views on the issue. When asked his views on gay marriage in the UK he began by saying  "I think it is a really complicated situation. On the one hand I believe that everyone gay or straight should have the right to get married because we now live in an equal society and I do not think the current ‘civil partnership’ is good enough because there are fundamental differences between this and marriage."

He went on to say, " I think what a lot of people are over looking is the fact that ‘marriage’ is a word that does not belong to a religion, it simply means a union between two people. Taking marriage to mean this, I think that everyone gay or straight should be able to get married. Where I think the true debate lies, is with marriage in the Christian sense because whether you like it or not the bible clearly condemns homosexuality. Therefore forcing the church to perform gay marriage will be going against part of that faith and I can completely understand why the Church would not want to do this.
When asked if he himself intended to tie the knot if laws were change Marden commented, "Personally, I would not like to get married in a church or enter into the Christian institution of marriage because I feel that Christianity and all other faiths for that matter do not support or agree with homosexuality. Therefore, why would I want to be a part of something that condemns me? I am completely happy with who I am and completely happy being an atheist, therefore this issue does not effect me directly. Would I like gay civil partnerships to have the same ‘weight’ and respect as ‘traditional marriage’? Yes, definitely. Would I like to married in a Church and like to see the church forced into this? No, why should the government change the ‘rules’ of religion. People, gay or straight, have the right to opt out of the church if they feel it is out dated in terms of its beliefs concerning women, homosexuals etc. However, having said that, I do have many friends who are gay and Christian who would like to be excepted by their church and married in the eyes of their God so I do understand why this is a heated issue for them."

In short, I think that gay marriage should be allowed/made legal but no necessarily in the ‘religious’ sense. However, if the church do wish to change with the times then that is a fantastic step for equality but you will not see me rushing to be married in a church. I do also think it is important to remember that it is great we can even debate this openly in  the UK because many countries still punish homosexuality with death."

The Cloud then spoke with a local spokesperson from the Bodmin Parish who commented on same sex marriages by starting off with saying, "Everyone is born different, and if you're born that way then that is fine, if you're raised that way it's not your doing either, you don't control the various inputs into your life, we're not robots and whilst we have been given the gift of free will we are faced with many other factors in our lives, like social pressures, parents, media etc. And really whilst we are not predestined to do things, we all have the potential to do many things, and if that potential was created in us it could not possibly be a sin or immoral or wrong in any form. People construct machines at CERN in the full knowledge that it could go wrong, but they still do it, is it their fault if it does by chance? Yes, as they put the potential there in the first place.

He went on to say,"The Bible says love thy neighbour, whilst this does mean love Jews, it does also apply to everyone, and we were all constructed in the image of our creator, be that a personal God or a single prokaryote. Jesus loved everyone, treated women as equals and as such why should we treat homosexuals as any different to us?"

He ended by saying "If homosexuality is a sin it does not matter anyway as our God is loving and forgiving, and Jesus died for our sins so let it not be in vain."