Coalition for (Equal) Marriage: Sign the Petition

February 24, 2012 — Terence Weldon

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has launched a “Coalition for Marriage” and on-line petition in opposition to British proposals for marriage equality. Catholic bishops Peter Smith and Vincent Nichols have both said, with some difference of emphasis, that while the Catholic church has a whole will not get involved in this campaign, they will “encourage” individual Catholics to sign.

Like their American counterpart, the National Organization for Marriage, what they are “for” is of course just a restricted view of marriage, the modern understanding of what they incorrectly describe as “traditional” marriage, arguing against its “redefinition” – ignoring the fact that marriage has been constantly redefined over the centuries, often at the instigation of the churches.  What really characterises them is what they are against , extending the benefits of civil marriage to same -sex couples, and their children. They argue that redefinition is necessary, because “children do best with a married mother and a father” – ignoring scientific evidence to the contrary, and without showing how preventing gay marriage will ensure that every child will have one mother and one father. They claim that gay marriage will “sideline” heterosexual married couples, with the support only of a lurid flight of fantasy. And they ask people to speak up, so that government will not be “pressured” by political correctness (preferring instead that government be pressured by religious ideology).

Their arguments are spurious and need to be countered. In a neat twist, an alternative coalition for marriage (for all, not just some) has launched a competing petition, using precisely the same format as Lord Carey’s petition, countering each of their claims with a sound, reasoned response.  I first came across this in a blog post by some-one urging his readers to sign the original petition because it “is the will of God”, who described the counter-petition as “tongue-in-cheek”. It is not. The presentation is clever and fun, but the intent and the arguments are deadly serious. I urge my readers, too, to join the Coalition for (Equal) Marriage, and to sign the petition: it’s in keeping with God’s will  for justice, and recognises the Catholic respect for families – all families.

For comparison, I reproduce here each of the key clauses of Lord Carey’s petition, followed by the response (in blue italics):

MARRIAGE IS UNIQUE

Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman. Marriage reflects the complementary natures of men and women. Although death and divorce may prevent it, the evidence shows that children do best with a married mother and a father.

Marriage Is Unique

On this one point we agree. Marriage is unique. It is a union of two people in love, for life, to the exclusion of all others. A commitment upon which one can build a home and a family. We just think it should be available to all who want that commitment. Oh, and just to clarify, we don’t want to force churches to marry same-sex couples against their will. 

What scientific evidence shows, is that children do best with two loving parents, irrespective of gender. In any case, denying the benefits of marriage to same – sex couples will not in any way improve the chances of children being raised by both a mother and a father – and denying adoption (which is a separate issue to marriage) simply reduces the chances of a child in need of a home, finding one.

NO NEED TO REDEFINE

Civil partnerships already provide all the legal benefits of marriage so there’s no need to redefine marriage. It’s not discriminatory to support traditional marriage. Same-sex couples may choose to have a civil partnership but no one has the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us.

Be Glad of Redefinition

Marriage has not remained unchanged since the dawn of time. It has changed throughout history, adapting to each culture. In western culture it has more recently undergone changes to better protect the rights of women. Funnily enough, the Church of England itself introduced divorce, the biggest change to the definition of marriage since its inception. Marriage changes all the time, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Civil partnerships may provide the legal benefits – but not the social benefits of the name. There have been countless “definitions” of marriage for different cultures, and periods of history. Christian missionaries and European colonisers did not hesitate to “redefine” marriage in the countries they occupied. The current proposal is to extend civil marriage, which was itself a legal innovation redefining earlier practices.

PROFOUND CONSEQUENCES

If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People’s careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?

Great Consequences

If marriage is redefined (again), those who believe in the modern definition of “traditional” marriage will still be married. They will still have the same sexual-orientation. Peoples’ careers will remain intact, the sun will keep shining, and toast will still have a tendency to land butter-side-down. Couples seeking to adopt or foster will still be assessed based on the needs of the child, as they should be. Also, if we’re very lucky, schools might teach kids not to be massive bigots like their parents, and we’ll be one step closer to a cohesive, mature, civilised society.

Bringing up polygamy is an old scare tactic, which I find frankly bizarre, from  a Biblical perspective. Polygamy was an established part of Old Testament Jewish culture. Its disappearance in favour of monogamy is just one example of many, of how marriage has been constantly redefined. If it had not been, it would still be commonplace.

SPEAK UP

People should not feel pressurised to go along with same-sex marriage just because of political correctness. They should be free to express their views. The Government will be launching a public consultation on proposals to redefine marriage. This will provide an opportunity for members of the public to make their views known.

Speak Up

We agree with C4M; people should not feel pressurised to go along with same sex marriage just because of political correctness. Take Ben Summerskill’s advice: If you’re against same-sex marriage you should marry someone of the opposite sex. The government will be launching a public consultation on proposals to bring in full marriage equality. This will provide an opportunity for members of the public to make their views known.

We’re all agreed, then:

Sign The Petition

This petition is restricted to UK residents who are aged 16 and over.

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  • Advocatus Diaboli

    I think that one of the reasons why
    people continue to reject evidence that two gay men/women can be just as effective
    parents as a straight man and woman is because they do not understand the
    gay psyche. Not being gay, they cannot really understand how the gay mind
    works, and so they do only what all humans do when they see a similarity (such
    a physical gender) between themselves and someone else; which is assume that
    the rest of that person if fundamentally the same as they are. What I am trying to say is
    that is that, speaking from their understanding, I would agree that ‘two men’
    are less effective than a woman and a man at raising children, BUT what I mean
    by that is I truly believe that two STRAIGHT men are fundamentally less
    effective at raising healthy and fully functioning children – Same with two
    STRAIGHT women; because in both cases the child is being raised in an
    environment that is totally polarized and missing one half of the opposite end
    of the gender dichotomy.

    Obviously this is a generalization,
    and there are countless degrees and exceptions to every generalization, but I
    believe that straight men and straight women are polarized in their gender, and
    the gay psyche has much less stronger dichotomy. A fundamental aspect of the
    gay psyche is that it combines both feminine and masculine triats into the
    same body. People with masculine minds think, interpret, and communicate in
    fundamentally different ways that people with feminine minds (you can find the research results on traits of
    each mental gender with a simple google search). Not only is each gay person
    more likely to have a less polarized blend than a straight person, but even
    within the context of a sam-sex couple usually one tends to have a psyche that falls more on the feminine mental
    structure  side and  one tends to fall more on the masculine
    side. 
    What I am talking about in the fem/masc psyche model is not fem/masc
    mannerisms (though those can often coincide), but rather distinctly femn/mas
    personality traits: For example, someone with a femine psyche is much more
    likely to disclose information about themselves to assist understanding and
    bonding (even information that is not necessary) to both friends and strangers,
    and the masculine psyche is much more reserved in self-diclosure. A real life example can be found in contrasting myself to a gay friend of mine : I have a male body,
    with primarily masculine but sometimes feminine interests and mannerisms, but I
    have a very feminine psyche in that I am far more likely to disclose
    information about myself and am more prone to neurotic tendencies (where as masculine psyche’s are more prone to psychotic tendencies). My friend has a very feminine (but still male) body, very femine
    interests (like glitter), but has a fundamentally masculine psyche in the way that he
    interprets situations, resolves conflicts, is oblivious to subtle forms of non-verbal communication, tends to see things in black and white, and is always averse to disclosing information about himself.

    I believe that people who continue
    to disbelieve that two people of the same sex can be just as
    effective in raising children  inspite of research are doing so because they correctly understand
    that you need both a primarily masc and primarily fem psyche to properly raise
    a child, but they are unable to understand that while masc and fem psych’s are
    most commonly found in male and female bodies respectively, they can also be
    found in their opposite bodies. The three factors of (1) body type, (2)
    orientation, and (3) mental psyche are independent of one another; though
    there are combinations that are more common than others. The standard (as in
    most common) combination for masculine is: male body, hetero orientation, and
    masc psyche (and the exact opposite for feminine). They cannot believe that
    same-sex couples can as effective because they cannot understand that ‘body
    type’ is not the important factor raising children, it is’psyche type’; until they understand that someone with a masculine body can have a feminine
    psyche and vice versa they will never believe that same-sex couples can be just as effective . They are actually accurate in saying that two people of
    the same “gender” are less effective at raising children than people of opposite genders, they are just
    inaccurate in assuming that “gender” is the same as “body type”.

  • SisterTemptation

    The Age of Aquarius is now beginning to dominate.  Pisces is being overcome.  A New World Order is emerging.  The spirit of Aquarius is sucking the Church dry and rendering all resistance futile.  Behold the Reign of Lust!

  • Pingback: UK Coalition for Equal Marriage – petition » A Plague Of Mice

  • SisterTemptation

    Obama supports gay marriage and gay sex.  We are overcoming.  Soon, everything will fall to the Age of Aquarius.

    • SisterTemptation

      The Church will be overcome.

    • Advocatus Diaboli

      Be wary about Aquarius. I know, I am a
      full-blooded to the T, in every way and detail, Aquarius. Potential for great
      humanity and compassion and liberation, but also potential for incredibly
      authoritarian cruelty. All the signs have good and bad traits, and both the best and the worst of Piscese manifested
      during this passing age; you should fully expect for the same thing to happen
      with Aquarius. Actually, knowing first hand the bouts of psychotic and neurotic episodes, the  dangerously confrontational, destructively dogmatic,
      and cruelly cold-shouldered bouts that Aquarius is prone to, I am very
      skeptical about the traditional view of the Age of Aquarius as just a bunch of
      love peace tolerance and harmony. The entire dystopian genera, like 1984, Equilibrium, panopticon, and Repo Man (and real life things like Marxist Communism and bolshevism) all describe Aquarianist societies. Check these astrologer quotes out:

       

      -The Age of Aquarius – The
      Nightmare Scenario

       

      -Some have said the Aquarian age has the potential
      to be horrific, this is true.

      Any sign, any quality, has its good potential and
      its bad potential. This is especially the case when Saturn and Uranus are involved involved (which are big parts of Aquarius). Saturn on the shadow side represents control, limits and
      boundaries, power over others, tradition, conservative resistance to change,
      death, etc. The shadow side of Uranus is contemptuous,
      dictatorial, destructive, unstable, scheming, and explosive. Aquarius itself also has its shadow side: unpredictable,
      impatient, impersonal, cold, and even self-righteous.

       

      -As to the age of Aquarius, some might argue that it isn’t all flowery. Some would say that an Aquarian can easily be an “humanitarian without compassion” because of impersonal thinking. It’s a fixed sign, so the expressions may be dogmatic and rigid.

       

      -The Aquarian attitude is often: “everyone should be free to
      be just like me.” That doesn’t sound like the rosy utopia that everyone claims will happen. Personally, I think that Aquarius
      will bring us more of the same tyranny, plunder, and abuse. Actually, I think
      that it will intensify those terrible things in order to purge them, like the
      human body killing a disease with fever and swelling. My thinking, as stated in
      numerous other places, is that the big transition will be on the
      Capricorn/Aquarius cusp. The Aquarius/Pisces cusp marks the beginning of the
      purification by fire. How do you find goodness? In suffering.

       

      -Aquarius at its dark
      side is a sign of ruthless and detached intellect. Aquarius at is darkest has
      no problem starving hundreds so thousands more can prosper.

       

       

      -I laugh at how folks back in the
      60s and 70s were going ga-ga about the “dawning of the Age of
      Aquarius”. CUE SONG FROM “Hair”. Many of the aspects of
      society the Hippies of the 60s were attacking were, in fact, the Aquarian
      aspects: technology, a coldly impersonal and hyper-institutional society, etc.
      It seems to me that the 60s Counterculture was actually Aquarius’ opposite, Leo,
      mixed in with non-Western Pisces Age spirituality. For a real look at the
      future, look at “impersonal” social networking as well as
      Transhumanism.

       

       

      Maximilien Robespierre’s sun sign was not an aquarius (he
      was born 16 days after aquarius passed for the year), but is ascendent was aquarius. He embodies more than anyone else that I can think of the model aquarian: he was one of the first people in history to seriously argue for the
      abolition of the death penalty on humanitarian grounds (so he was non-traditional, forward thinking, compassionate, and humanitarian). 5 years later he order 25,000 people’s heads
      cut off without fair trial (for the crime of simply disagreeing with him) to bring about his vision of “freedom”; he then
      gave a speech saying that Terror was both necessary and just, “Terror is
      nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible;it is therefore an
      emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a
      consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s
      needs”. Completely and totally Aquarian. 

      Marxism, Bolshevism, and Maoism are all Aquarian systems: They preach equality, unity, human-brotherhoo no-suffereing, rights, social justice, and general utopia, but they do so at the expense of any and all freedom. They preach rights, but will not think twice about trampling on them if you dissagree. The preach egalitarianism but you know the old saying about that, “If a nail on a coffin stands up, it must be hammered down”.  Also, whether or not you believe the the Book of Revelation is a future prophecy or describing something in the past, the description of the government and society in it is typical aquarianism. food for thought.

      Aquarius has a lot of good to offer, but do not be fooled into a sense of security, and DEFINITELY do not make the mistake of thinking that its good intentions rapidly turn into satanic persecution, because Aquarius is without a doubt the single most dangerous, genocidal, oppressive, hyper-controlling, hyper-institutional, rigid, dogmatic, intolerant, plotting, nefarious, and inhuman of all the signs; trust me, take if from a Aquarius himself. 

       

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