The Buzzcock's song, Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? came into my head this morning.
A punk anthem to teenage sexuality and gender confusion.
It was a great favourite in the gay teenage youth group I hosted in Newcastle.
Now I am reminded of it because Mr Cameron appears to be on the verge of introducing legislation that I can only welcome and approve of, and doing it to a cacophony of protests from Bishop's, Archbishop's and Cardinals, which I cannot approve of.
Wow! It could almost be the big society.
Allowing same sex couples to have their relationships celebrated and blessed and to be able to call it marriage.
I always like Rabbi Lionel Blue on the Today programme and this morning his joke about the dangers of mixed marriages was a telling riposte to the preceding report.
What better way to counter the arguments being marshalled by Archbishop's and Cardinal's who should know better, than a little gentle humour.
Whilst I welcome the legislation and the changes it promises I cannot promise to like Mr Cameron any more than I do now, which is not at all. I still hope that for all their scheming the coalition disappears into the political shadows from which they emerged, but I hope that this liberal, human, heart warming and entirely right minded legislation is voted in first.
It seems to me that the churches general opposition belongs to the same poor reading of the Bible that questions the ordination of women, we must always in reading the bible take the text and place it in the context not only of when it was written and why it was written, but in the context of when it is being read and by whom.
The spirit of the age is as important as the Holy Spirit if we are to read the Bible intelligently.
Scholars have a view certainly, as does the churches general understanding over time, but times change and as they change we develop a more human understanding of what it takes to be who we are meant to be under God.
And why cannot a couple who have committed themselves to each other in a relationship bring that relationship before a registrar or the church and ask for it to be recognised or blessed and call it a marriage with all the legal consequences of that recognition or blessing?
I was ordained in 1969 after three years at a Theological College where it was common knowledge that amongst both the student body and the staff there were clergy and ordinands who were gay.
Somehow a small minded, mean spirited part of the church has managed over the forty years or so that I have been ordained to hold the church to ransom by threatening to withhold its money. Well as the Episcopal Church in the USA found over the ordination of women it is quite possible to continue to be church without them or their money, and to flourish.
One of the issues that makes this a difficult argument is the fate of the Ugandan Martyrs who were killed for resisting the sexual advances of the King after they converted but Archbishop Sentamu's reference to Dictatorship does not refer to this tragic event in the life of the Ugandan Church, instead he challenges the Government for seeking to redefine marriage, but he is wrong, as anyone who has fled a dictatorship to seek asylum in the UK, knows.
We live in a liberal democracy that has slowly and painfully moved far from the day when homosexual practises were illegal to a time when we are free to express ourselves openly and honestly about our sexuality and who we wish to share our lives with.
That is a great thing and to be welcomed.
Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?
A punk anthem to teenage sexuality and gender confusion.
It was a great favourite in the gay teenage youth group I hosted in Newcastle.
Now I am reminded of it because Mr Cameron appears to be on the verge of introducing legislation that I can only welcome and approve of, and doing it to a cacophony of protests from Bishop's, Archbishop's and Cardinals, which I cannot approve of.
Wow! It could almost be the big society.
Allowing same sex couples to have their relationships celebrated and blessed and to be able to call it marriage.
I always like Rabbi Lionel Blue on the Today programme and this morning his joke about the dangers of mixed marriages was a telling riposte to the preceding report.
What better way to counter the arguments being marshalled by Archbishop's and Cardinal's who should know better, than a little gentle humour.
Whilst I welcome the legislation and the changes it promises I cannot promise to like Mr Cameron any more than I do now, which is not at all. I still hope that for all their scheming the coalition disappears into the political shadows from which they emerged, but I hope that this liberal, human, heart warming and entirely right minded legislation is voted in first.
It seems to me that the churches general opposition belongs to the same poor reading of the Bible that questions the ordination of women, we must always in reading the bible take the text and place it in the context not only of when it was written and why it was written, but in the context of when it is being read and by whom.
The spirit of the age is as important as the Holy Spirit if we are to read the Bible intelligently.
Scholars have a view certainly, as does the churches general understanding over time, but times change and as they change we develop a more human understanding of what it takes to be who we are meant to be under God.
And why cannot a couple who have committed themselves to each other in a relationship bring that relationship before a registrar or the church and ask for it to be recognised or blessed and call it a marriage with all the legal consequences of that recognition or blessing?
I was ordained in 1969 after three years at a Theological College where it was common knowledge that amongst both the student body and the staff there were clergy and ordinands who were gay.
Somehow a small minded, mean spirited part of the church has managed over the forty years or so that I have been ordained to hold the church to ransom by threatening to withhold its money. Well as the Episcopal Church in the USA found over the ordination of women it is quite possible to continue to be church without them or their money, and to flourish.
One of the issues that makes this a difficult argument is the fate of the Ugandan Martyrs who were killed for resisting the sexual advances of the King after they converted but Archbishop Sentamu's reference to Dictatorship does not refer to this tragic event in the life of the Ugandan Church, instead he challenges the Government for seeking to redefine marriage, but he is wrong, as anyone who has fled a dictatorship to seek asylum in the UK, knows.
We live in a liberal democracy that has slowly and painfully moved far from the day when homosexual practises were illegal to a time when we are free to express ourselves openly and honestly about our sexuality and who we wish to share our lives with.
That is a great thing and to be welcomed.
Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?
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