Gay marriage plan threatens churches says Bishop of Winchester -Times Online

So here’s the deal. Gay people insist on the right to marry. I don’t think it is meaningfully possible and object on social and religious grounds. But we live in a liberal democracy so I can hardly deny others the privilege that democracy affords me. But that is not enough – it never is. They want enshrined in law the right to marry in religious premises. Of course, there are already those liberal churches that afford this privilege without legal coercion but that is not enough – it never is. So the final situation stands something like this:

You have no right to force me as a gay person to comply with your religious code but I want enshrined in law the right to force you to act against your religious conscience. Nice!

‘Church of England clergy will be sued for discrimination if they refuse to “marry” homosexuals under a proposed law, a bishop has warned. Other religious leaders fear that churches that refuse to bless civil partnerships might be forced to close…

Don Horrocks, of the [Evangelical] alliance, said: “We understand the Lords’ desire to allow a few liberal religious groups to have freedom to follow their consciences. But other religious groups must not be forced to betray their consciences by facing lawsuits if they fail to allow a civil ceremony.

“This amendment hugely confuses the distinction between civil secular ceremonies and religious ceremonies, as well as the nature of marriage, and has major implications for the UK’s matrimonial laws which haven’t begun to be thought through.”’

Now this is going to upset some people I know personally but it has to be said. It is never enough, whatever you do to enshrine gay rights in law, it is never going to be enough.

In the UK there are calls for all kinds of “traditional” gay activities to be acceptable and legally protected now that basic gay rights are recognised. This includes the right to participate in cruising, the frequenting of public places for the purposes of casual sex – see here. It seems some wish to be free to liaise in places like the infamous Highgate Cemetery for instance without let or hindrance (shades of Joe Orton)

What next? The right to organise and participate in cottaging? As a young man I was more than once the target of such activities and I can tell you it is not the happy-go-lucky and wholesome activity some might have you believe. But this is the way it is going as the gay programme embraces any and all sexual activities once considered aberrant and wrong. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender movement (LGBT) is vocal and growing in its call for the acceptance of any and everything that would overturn the accepted and traditional mores and customs of society. Likeminded people gathering around a common cause, or an example of my enemy’s enemy is my friend?Sociologist Mary Bernstein said:

"For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include (but are not limited to) challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm." (Bernstein, Mary (2002). Identities and Politics: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Lesbian and Gay Movement. Social Science History 26:3 (fall 2002).

The “cause” is anarchic then and not simply about being accepted but about creating a social chaos out of which this new, promiscuous order will rise. Promiscuous?

There are faithful and good people who remain in gay relationships for a lifetime, this I know personally. But casual and promiscuous sex seem to be the overwhelming norm in the gay community. So, on one hand you have people that seek, reasonably in many eyes, to be accepted in homosexual relationship as equals in the wider society with heterosexual partnerships. But then you have many in that same community seeking to have the same wider society give licence for their promiscuous agenda.

Of course, when such concerns are expressed we are met with the same cry - “Homophobia!” Its a lot like talking to a Mormon who will cry “Anti-Mormon!” But crying foul and damning your critics as blind and ill-informed enemies hardly helps to move the discussion along and does nothing to address the genuine fears and concerns of intelligent people.

Gay marriage plan threatens churches says Bishop of Winchester -Times Online

21 Questions about Mormonism - God, Mary and the 'S' Word

To find out what this series is about look here.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that God and Mary had physical sex to conceive Jesus?

A: The Church does not claim to know how Jesus was conceived but believes the Bible and Book of Mormon references to Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary.

Qu: “The Only Begotten of the Father (Moses 5:9). These name titles all signify that our Lord is the Only Son of the Father in the flesh. Each of the words is to be understood literally...Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers” (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 546/7, c.f. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p.81 where he writes of “celestial Sireship” and “the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity”).

C: Jesus was naturally conceived and not supernaturally, and is just “the only begotten of God in the flesh”. In the spirit we are all sons of God (Joseph F Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 69). They avoid Mt.1:20 in this answer in which they claim to believe the Bible account. The answer they give here is simply dishonest and misleading since, in Mormonism, we are all spirit children of God and Jesus is marked out only by the facts that he is 1) the firstborn spirit child (our elder brother) and 2) the only one of God’s children who is literally the Son of God in the flesh. This is a well attested Mormon teaching, they know it, and to deny that knowledge is a lie.

Let me make this clear. All men and women were born to and lived with God in a premortal existence and Jesus is the eldest of that vast family. The only thing that otherwise makes Jesus different is that, while everyone else was born into this world as a result of mummy and daddy having sex, Jesus’ mummy was Mary and his daddy was God; otherwise the operation was no different. McConkie and Talmage are giants of Mormonism in theological terms and their books formative in Mormon thinking. Note McConkie’s words, “Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers”. Note Talmage’s reference to “celestial Sireship” and “the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity”. This is what Mormons believe by the term “only begotten”, i.e. only begotten in the flesh but first begotten in the spirit.

Look, the Mormon god is a man with a physical body. He has a wife (or rather wives) with a physical body. Mormon men expect that one day they will be gods with physical bodies with wives who have physical bodies. Vive la difference!

Previous Posts:

Mormonism: A Cult?

Jesus: God the Son, or the son of a god?

Kolob: Where God Lives?

Coming Up:

Jesus in America

What Every Mormon Wants: godhood

Mormon Women

Be Careful What You Ask

We have been married for thirty four years and, I agree, a man of such long experience should know better than to ask a direct question. Any married man will tell you that any married woman will always meet a direct question with – a direct question. For instance, you are at the theatre, the play is dragging and you sense that she is not enjoying it any more than you are. At the interval you stand in the lobby or at the small and crowded bar (why are theatre bars always so tiny?). Out of concern for her you turn and ask, “Why don’t we give the second half a miss?” Suddenly, she is very interested in how the play turns out, even though it’s The Mousetrap and you have seen it three times before, and replies, “Do you want to go home already on our first night out together for months? You never take me anywhere.”

“But I didn’t mean…”

But what you meant is not the point. You asked the wrong question.

I should explain that I am a “househusband” while my wife is the “breadwinner”. Very enlightened. However, no matter how long this swapping roles business goes on, there are some things to do with the nature of men and women that never change. As we approached the penultimate day of the year I knew my wife was going to be in work on New Year’s Eve. The question was, did she plan to finish work early and return to hearth and home, Sparkling Perry, Trivial Pursuit – and foreshorten “my day”, or would she dutifully press on to the bitter and belated anti-climax that is New Year’s Eve at the office?

I was tired. It had been a busy Christmas (you don’t know how busy until you have to organise it yourself because, “that’s your job”). As we sat up in bed, she reading a Science Fiction novel, me reading the latest Kathy Reichs forensic science adventure and thinking about who of my acquaintance might look good on a slab, when the words just – slipped out. “Are you finishing work early tomorrow, sweetheart?” It sounded so right in my head but as soon as it was on my lips I knew I had blundered and could have wished myself on that slab.

I was simply seeking information. I had no views on the matter. It mattered not at all to me what her answer would be, so long as it was a straight answer. I thought of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” he sang. Ask a man a straight question and the fellow will give you a straight answer. He understands the need simply to know, the problem-solving nature of questions, the worth of the direct route to a solution. To a woman a question is an opportunity for adventure, a chance to elicit something from an unexpected happenstance, to be complimented or, if she can catch him out, to be rewarded by her poor, dumb, placating husband, “No, dear, I really didn’t mean…?”

She turned and smiled in that inscrutable way they have and asked – asked mind, not answered, “Would you like me to finish early?” Oh, the fiendishness of it! The utter cunning of her gender. This would be tricky and, what made it worse, I had walked into it with my mouth open ready to receive both feet. I felt the panic rise in me like a flowing tide and my will to defy the fickle fates ebb away. I thought of how busy my day would be; how solitude in the kitchen would be so much more – salubrious than the occasional interruptions to, “come and see this on the TV, dear”, or, “Do you know where such-and-such is dear?” I love my wife, but I like my kitchen. It is my domain now. I know where everything is - I am in charge. It is the only place where I at least have the illusion of being king of my own castle. I spend hours in there, preparing food and listening to BBC radio 4, the Today programme, the News Quiz, “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue”, with Humphrey Littleton. I am reluctant to come out of it until I am ready.

Steadying my nerves I took a deep breath and said, “Of course, my love, I would be ecstatic to see you home early. I would look forward to spending more time with you. However, I mustn’t be selfish, and I know how you hate to leave loose ends. You are getting on so well at the office I would hate for you to blot your copybook for my sake. If you need to work through I don’t want to get in your way.”

We compromised. She finished early but late enough for Radio 4 to lose my attention and the lounge sofa to gain my undying loyalty. If you are already kicking yourself for breaking your New Year’s Resolutions let me make you feel worse still. I have, so far, kept mine – to never ask a direct question.