Welby's argument against gay marriage has strength. But we can't yield to moral blackmail

From The Guardian-

Justin Welby has come out with a fascinating argument against the Church of England endorsing gay marriage – which is that, were this to occur, African Christians would be murdered. He had in mind intercommunal massacres, such as the one he cited in Nigeria. He referred to a particularly harrowing experience he had in the middle belt of Nigeria, where the ethnic cleansing of a Christian village by Muslim neighbours was supposedly justified or prompted by something gay-friendly done by the Anglican church in the US.

There's no doubt that Welby was profoundly affected by the experience. He has talked about it to me privately – not your average cocktail party conversation – and he was clearly anguished by the memory of the mass grave and the way it smelled.

There was a similar account when Rowan Williams decided to ditch his old friend Jeffrey John in 2003: he was apparently told that, if John were consecrated as bishop of Reading, Christians in Pakistan would die in the subsequent rioting.

More here-

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/apr/05/archbishop-welby-gay-marriage-moral-blackmail