A radical homosexual ‘rights’ group is seeking to expand its agenda through the Equality Bill, which is currently going through the parliamentary stages in Westminster. The group is seeking to add an amendment to the Bill to ‘allow’ churches to hold homosexual civil partnership ceremonies.
Andrea Williams, Director of CCFON, said: ‘Marriage is ordained by God as a lifelong relationship between one man as husband and one woman as wife. The idea that this centuries old definition of marriage is discriminatory is ludicrous. We know that marriage as set out in the Bible is the cornerstone of a happy and settled society. There is no more radical idea in a civil society than the re-definition of marriage. If we let in Stonewall’s agenda through the Equality Bill it will be another death knell in the fabric of our society. Such an idea undermines the very foundation of human relationship.’
PinkNews, a UK-based online newspaper for homosexuals, reported that the amendment would give ministers of religion ‘the option’ of presiding over the ceremonies.
The report says ‘Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said the charity was working with the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) and the Metropolitan Community Church to get the amendment tabled.’ They however conceded that the House of Lords may not be in favour of such provision.
Mr Summerskill said:
‘We are very clear that this is an issue of religious freedom and if faiths want to celebrate the ceremonies of two men or two women, it's not for someone else to say you can't do that. Right now, faiths shouldn't be forced to hold civil partnerships, although in ten or 20 years, that may change.’
The Equality Bill is a major piece of legislation that will replace 9 pieces of equality legislation and about 100 other measures. The Bill, being promoted by Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, is aiming to strengthen protection for minority groups by placing a new equality duty on public bodies like the police, schools and local councils.
(See the CCFON report)
In July 2005, the Church of England’s House of Bishops issued a pastoral statement to help the Church to address the implications of the Civil Partnership Act 2005, which made the rights and responsibilities of homosexuals identical to those between a man and a woman in civil marriage. The statement read:
‘The Church sees marriage, defined as a faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman, as central to the stability and health of human society and so to be encouraged’.
It continued: ‘... marriage has a particular distinctiveness in that it is based on an understanding of the love that God has shown the human race in His Son Jesus Christ. The Church believes that, for Christians, marriage is called to reflect that love. The promises made between a husband and wife as part of a Christian act of worship are a sign of the promise of love that Christ made to his Church.’
(Click here to read the response in full)
David Blankenhorn, the author of the book The Future of Marriage who studied the issues surrounding marriage for 20 years, said in a recent debate with pro-homosexual activists:
‘Same sex marriage forces society to re-define what the marriage is. It requires us to say that the marriage is no longer what it is known to be, but instead calls it a ‘specific commitment to another person’. In other words, the redefinition is that two people who are committed one to another are married and all the public authority and the institutional meaning that has surrounded the marriage as an institution gets defined away, so that you just have private relationships between people. It requires to change the meaning for everyone, not only for homosexuals.
‘It also explicitly severs the link between marriage and children. The basic concept of marriage is to bring together a male and a female who make the next generation and ensure that they are able to rise that generation. This serious principle had been laughed at, put down and sneered at,’ he added.
In 2007, Steven Mosher, President of Population Research Institute, commented on the introduction of same-sex ‘marriages’ in Sweden:
‘When you allow homosexuals to marry, you are saying that the aspect of raising children, the aspect of procreation is completely irrelevant.
‘You are finally divorcing what you call marriage from any relationship of bearing and having children, and that empties out the concept entirely, making it devoid of any significance. So it's the end of the road for the family.’
The report says that the amendment is expected to be made when the Equality Bill is moved before the House of Lords in the next four to six weeks.