WITH the news that Scotland’s Assembly has plans to proceed to legalise gay marriage, the immoral and unnatural aspirations of some political groups seem to override the wishes of the electorate once more.
As highlighted in the News Letter on July 26, two out of every three (64%/36%) who responded - out of approximately 80,000 consultations sent out - opposed this move, yet, (not surprisingly) the Assembly plans to move ahead anyway, in common, it appears, with the British Government’s plans.
One wonders when the elected parliaments will begin to listen to the electorate. Are these decisions personally motivated, one wonders?
Do David Cameron and Alex Salmond want to leave something behind them, to be remembered for? What a legacy to leave!
To overturn scores of centuries of cultural, traditional, family-oriented, practice (biblically based at that - days long gone, it seems), in order to satisfy a whim. So absurd is it, that even gays have said they don’t need ‘marriage’. They say that civil partnerships are, to them, the same thing.
This view is at large even in Westminster amongst openly gay MPs.
It has been stated that churches and places of worship will be under no pressure to carry out such ‘marriages’.
This was said in both the Government’s consultation paper and by the Deputy First Minister of the Scottish Assembly. The truth is that the ‘couple’ who approach a church to marry them, only to be told that the church is under no duty to carry out the ceremony, can then apply to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that their human rights have been violated.
There will no doubt be pressure groups who will take up their fight.
Such a case took place in March when the European judges ruled (in the case of Gas and Dubois v France) that “governments are not required to introduce same-sex ‘marriage’.
However, they also said that IF a government chooses to extend the definition of marriage to same-sex couples, then it would be a violation of human rights for homosexual couples seeking ‘marriage’ to be denied rights and privileges offered to heterosexual couples” (quoted from Christian Voice summer 2012 issue on the subject).
So, the die has been cast already. Churches, be warned, this may yet lead to ministers or church officials appearing in court for daring to uphold their deeply-held Christian beliefs.
The hurtful thing is that the Government already know this will be the case; they just pass it off by saying THEY will not impose it on churches. They know that somewhere else that decision will be made, and they can wash their hands Pilate-style and say, ‘this is outside our control’.
Gordon McNeill
Portadown
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