Bishop of Exeter: 'Gay marriage is not a faith
issue – it is a challenge to our society'
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Bishop of Exeter the Rt Rev
Michael Langrish debates redefining marriage.
Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall
talking to Alice: "There's glory for you," he said. "I don't
know what you mean by glory," Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled
contemptuously. "Of course you don't till I tell you. I meant there's a
nice knock down argument for you." "But glory doesn't mean a nice
knock down argument," Alice objected. "When I use a word it means
just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."
That is precisely how it appears
to be with the Government's use of the word 'marriage'. A shared common
meaning, with its roots deep in all cultures and faiths, is to be thrown aside
and the term re-fashioned to mean what they wish it to mean, though reading the
Government's response to the Consultation and the Secretary of State's
Statement to the House of Commons, so many questions are left unanswered that I
am not sure that the Government knows what it wants to mean!
Maria Miller has spoken of how
marriage has evolved through human history; and it is true that it has, but one
thing and one thing only has remained constant and that is that it relates to
the union of a man and a woman. There have been many other restrictions on such
unions which have varied from time to time and place to place with different
laws relating to age of consent, number of permitted spouses, termination and
what is allowed or prohibited or allowed between members of the same family
group. What has stayed constant is an understanding that marriage is between
male and female, based on the complementarity of the two sexes.
Those who advocate 'same sex' or
'equal' marriage have sought to define opposition to this development as a
'faith' issue. That is simply untrue. It is a societal issue, as it redefines
marriage and that will have consequences for us all. For example, common to the
definition of marriage up until now accepted by both Church and State, has been
an understanding that the making of a marriage is not completed in the marriage
ceremony – wherever that may take place. It must be 'consummated' in the sexual
union of male and female, an act which also brings with it the potential for
the creation of new life. Failure to consummate has been one of the grounds on
which a marriage may be declared as invalid and annulled. What does
consummation mean in the case of two people of the same gender? The Government
has said that this is a matter that will be left to the courts. But then either
there must be two separate definitions of marriage, which ministers say there
cannot be, or else these judicial decisions will shape how any marriage
including those already in existence, will be said to be a true marriage.
In spite of this huge difficulty,
until this point I thought I could see where the Government was coming from.
Why was it that civil partnerships were insufficient for those of the same
gender who wished to make a public commitment to a permanent sharing of their
lives? As we know, the law already provides for those in civil partnerships to
share in the same legal benefits of marriage, and if there are remaining
differences, it is easy to tidy up the law. However it seems that something
more is being sought here because a civil partnership is simply an act of
registration. Marriage however, in law, is seen as a 'performative act'
bringing something new into being, something that until the exchange of vows
and consummation did not exist. A desire for such a performative, celebratory
act are aspirations I can understand and there are ways in which the law could
be changed without depriving the concept of marriage of its single, central
meaning.
But then Maria Miller suggested
that an existing civil partnership could be transformed into a 'marriage'
simply by signing a register. And if one marriage is simply a matter of civil
registration with no vows, no performative acts and no criteria for
consummation, then for every other marriage it must be the same; and each of us
who is married will have seen that to which we have committed ourselves – some
of us over many decades – irrevocably changed.
The Government has been keen to
portray any difficulties with what they are proposing as an issue of faith, but
it is a matter that touches one of the key building blocks of our society and
therefore affects us all. It is not just a matter of special provisions for
churches and other faith communities. Exemptions from conducting 'gay
marriages' are being offered to churches, but nothing is being said about the
education that is to be offered through Church schools. In Devon 30% of Primary
School pupils attend Church Schools, and our presence in the Secondary sector
is growing. Are Church schools to be allowed to teach a traditional
understanding of marriage while in non-church schools a different understanding
is to be taught? Or will Church Schools be forced by law to conform to a new
understanding which has no roots in the doctrines of any of the major faith
communities? If so this sets an extraordinary precedent for the State's power
to determine articles of faith, unparalleled in history apart from in those
repressive ideological states of the extreme right and left. At this point we
will have left the realm of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland for the land of George
Orwell's 1984.
Whatever the humane desires and
good intentions that may have led Mr Cameron to embark on this project, there
are so many unanswered questions and unforeseen consequences that ought to
suggest caution before serious damage is done to the very thing that has been
so precious a part of our social fabric – the lifelong union of one man to one
woman to the exclusion of all others for the creation and nurture of the
generations to come. It is possible that what is created may not even end up
fulfilling the hopes of those couples it was intended to serve.
