Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Under Rowan Williams, the church has failed gay people


Jeffery John from The Guardian-

Since 2005, same-sex couples in Britain have been able to contract a civil covenant which gives them the same legal protection and framework as heterosexual marriage. It is an act of legislation that has been almost universally acknowledged as a great good, a real advance for social stability and human happiness.

Far more people entered civil partnerships than the government had anticipated, and in the first years a high proportion of them were older couples who had been together in secrecy or semi-secrecy for decades – some from before the time homosexual acts were decriminalised in 1967. The sense of release and liberation, of joy in a newfound sense of dignity and affirmation, was extraordinary. For gay Christians it was a cause of profound thanksgiving to god.

The official church – and here my concern is mainly with the Church of England – is one of the few public domains where this development has been only grudgingly accepted, and in some quarters vehemently opposed. In recent years, while society has moved towards acceptance, the church has arguably moved in the opposite direction.

More here-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/14/church-will-accept-same-sex-marriage?newsfeed=true

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