Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
What nonsense you talk.
On social issues, women priests, homosexuality, abortion, divorce etc their views are identical
You'll be telling us next that Islam is basically like Roman Catholicism but with less statues and more domes.
Wouldn't your life be easier if you could bring yourself to admit it when you said something blatantly wrong?
No because Christians believe in the Trinity unlike Muslims.
Though to be fair most Muslim Imams take a harder line on gay marriage too
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage.
That's how it works in Germany. You can either make a bit of a do of the marriage registration, or you can quietly do the registration, then have a religious ceremony (or both). While the religious ceremony may be what people focus on, it has no meaning in the eyes of the law.
The largest Church in Germany is now the Roman Catholic Church too
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
What nonsense you talk.
On social issues, women priests, homosexuality, abortion, divorce etc their views are identical
Wouldn't your life be easier if you could bring yourself to admit it when you said something blatantly wrong?
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
What nonsense you talk.
On social issues, women priests, homosexuality, abortion, divorce etc their views are identical
You'll be telling us next that Islam is basically like Roman Catholicism but with less statues and more domes.
Wouldn't your life be easier if you could bring yourself to admit it when you said something blatantly wrong?
No because Christians believe in the Trinity unlike Muslims.
You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?
Related to the original topic: "{Last Thursday] A nurses strike at two private New York City hospital systems has come to an end after 7,000 nurses spent three days on the picket line.
The New York State Nurses Association union reached tentative deals with Mount Sinai Health System and Montefiore Health System, which operates three hospitals in the Bronx that had been struck. The nurses had been arguing that immense staffing shortages have caused widespread burnout, hindering their ability to properly care for their patients."
I expect more of these strikes in the US, and think "burnout" will be one of the biggest reasons for them.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
Sounds like the answer is to let the C of E remain estbalished provided they OK gay marriage.
Which is likely happening in the next year or two anyway
Interesting. You think that the Synod will vote in favour of same sex marriage within a year or two?
I'm none too sure.
What about a wager on the matter?
Allowing it with flying Bishops not full endorsement
I can see the debate boiling down to "permit same sex marriage, but allow individual clergy to refuse to do them" (similar to the rules on marriage of divorcees) against "allowing those who do not wish to perform same sex weddings a formal structure" (similar to flying Bishops). It's pretty clear that requiring all clergy to perform SSM weddings won't fly, and I can't personally see the status quo being sustainable after all the conversations the church has gone through in recent years.
Both "sides" have a clear blocking minority on Synod, so the question is who is willing to settle for what?
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church is not the largest church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
What nonsense you talk.
On social issues, women priests, homosexuality, abortion, divorce etc their views are identical
You'll be telling us next that Islam is basically like Roman Catholicism but with less statues and more domes.
Wouldn't your life be easier if you could bring yourself to admit it when you said something blatantly wrong?
No because Christians believe in the Trinity unlike Muslims.
Though to be fair most Muslim Imams take a harder line on gay marriage too
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
What nonsense you talk.
On social issues, women priests, homosexuality, abortion, divorce etc their views are identical
You'll be telling us next that Islam is basically like Roman Catholicism but with less statues and more domes.
Wouldn't your life be easier if you could bring yourself to admit it when you said something blatantly wrong?
No because Christians believe in the Trinity unlike Muslims.
Though to be fair most Muslim Imams take a harder line on gay marriage too
Unitarians don't.
Unitarians only just about manage to believe in God.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
Calamitous for Labour. They need a consistent 30+ point lead to cushion them from the Truss comeback bounce.
On the plus side, the Tory rampers who get excited by Sunak leading Starmer on best PM score will be quiet.
One poster in particular can take comfort in that, if you reverse the numbers in Sunak's figure, that gives him 42 which is ten percent ahead of Starmer.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage.
That's how it works in Germany. You can either make a bit of a do of the marriage registration, or you can quietly do the registration, then have a religious ceremony (or both). While the religious ceremony may be what people focus on, it has no meaning in the eyes of the law.
The largest Church in Germany is now the Roman Catholic Church too
Perhaps someone can enlighten this uninformed American. A number of commenters have said that builders sometimes get "planning permissions" for a site -- and then don't do anything with the site for a long period of time. The commenters seem to be implying that this is a widespread problem.
OK, assuming I understand the problem, why do builders do this? Why would builders invest time and money in getting these permisions, and then make no effort to earn some money from their investments?
Perhaps because the money to actually develop their planning is NOT forthcoming?
Here in Seattle, believe that is the reason (excuse) for the giant hole in the ground in downtown next to City Hall.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
The attack on the unions is just a distraction technique by people who can't admit that the real problem facing education is underfunding. My son's school is running out of teachers, it's got fuck all to do with the unions and everything to do with funding. Meanwhile, most of the people telling us that state schools don't need more money send their kids private where the funding is double. The hypocrisy is sickening.
I think everyone recognises that education is underfunded, CR yesterday called for an overnight increase of 30% in education funding. I'd like to see a full doubling of the budget and a reduction in uni fees back to the £1k per year we paid. I'd also have fully funded childcare from age 1-4 as well as the school day running from 8am to 6pm.
I'd fund it by cutting spending on pensions, freezing healthcare spending in real terms and raising taxes on wealth (similar to how beneficial trusts are taxed), pension incomes, tapering the state pension for higher rate taxpayers in retirement and higher tax on other unearned incomes. I'd also look to eliminate all in working benefits, all housing benefits and have a review of how we pay long term sick and unemployment benefits as it's clear the system is broken and being abused by "won't works" rather than being used as a last resort for "can't works".
Eliminating Housing Benefit would result in a *massive* rise in homelessness.
You think that would concern Max?
Hm, he's not wrong though that housing benefit isn't necessarily a terribly cost-effective way of addressing the problem of the lowest-paid's inability to afford housing. Basically, I agree with Max - but first you have to 'solve' housing - which includes doing lots of things, including a massive programme of housebuilding (both private and social).
Housing benefit mostly benefits landlords through higher rents. The vast majority of flats and houses that are currently let via housing benefit would continue to be either let to similar tenants or sold off to first time buyers (which reduces the number of tenants needed as well as houses available for rent).
The current system creates an inflationary spiral of rents and is bad for the taxpayer, good for landlords, and averagish for tenants needing support.
Or they would be let to private tenants able to pay a higher rent than those no longer having housing benefit could afford to pay.
Assuming the landlord still wants the rental income rather than to sell.
A better solution to reducing housing benefit is to build more social homes so the landlord is the local authority or housing association not private landlords
Why would this richer private tenant living in a nicer place choose to move to the one previously supported by housing benefit? Even if they did, their home now comes back onto the market and can be taken by a different tenant.
We still have x homes and y number of people.
If we got rid of all housing benefit you would see a reduction in the number of homes available at the cheapest end as it wouldn't be economically profitable. But reducing housing benefit significantly, especially in areas of higher rents will have very little impact on supply.
If the property was in London for example for which there is always more demand for private rental properties than supply.
If you abolished housing benefit or slashed housing benefit it would therefore significantly increase homelessness and supply of properties available for those on low incomes to rent in London in particular unless there was a big increase in building of new social housing at the same time
Demand at a given price point does not always exceed supply, if it did the price would keep rising until it didnt.
Remove govt props on housing and demand at the bottom end of the market at current prices will drop significantly as people won't be able to pay them. That will in turn lower rents. Broadly the same people who are in them now would then rent them at the lower prices. The taxpayer saves money and the landlords make less.
Your hypothesis is that if you stop paying housing benefit (or the housing component of UC, which has largely replaced it) then rents and house prices will decline but basically the same people would live in the same houses and it would simply be a transfer of resources from landlords to taxpayers. If you do the thought experiment I don't think that hypothesis is supported. The first step is you reduce the incomes of low income people. As a result they will demand less housing, but also less food, heating, clothing etc since that's what happens to consumers hit by a negative income shock. Let's leave aside that these are poor people who are probably already spending the bare minimum on all these things. Let's assume that prices are flexible and adjustment is quick. Prices of everything that low income people buy will fall, including housing. That means that while these people will still see a fall in their real incomes, it will be smaller than otherwise. Meanwhile, other people's real incomes have gone up thanks to the drop in prices, and so they can afford more of everything. As a result, they will demand more of everything - which limits the fall in prices including of housing. The net result will be disinflation including in housing. Richer households will consume more including housing - living in bigger homes. Poorer households will consume less housing - living in smaller homes - and less of everything else. Total demand for housing will be unchanged (demand=supply in equilibrium). The purpose of housing support for low income people is to support their consumption of housing relative to others'. If you remove that support, they will consume less housing (and less of everything else) while others will consume more. The idea that there would be no redistributive effects, and that landlords will be the primary losers, is fanciful. And of course in the real world the first effect would be mass homelessness followed by massive provision of more expensive emergency accommodation largely procured from private landlords. The solution to the housing benefit problem is more housing and a more equal income distribution. Props to HYUFD for talking a lot of sense on this topic BTW.
Certainly not going to disagree with more housing and more equal income distributions.
If the rich are going to consume more housing and have bigger homes, it will be through building extensions to their existing homes, not taking over social housing flats and ex council houses (unless to rent out) that are currently being occupied by those receiving housing benefit.
Plenty of people receiving housing benefit live in HMOs (most people under 35 can only claim the cost of a room in a shared house under the rules). Plenty of HMOs can be converted into large single family homes, in fact I believe our own 6 bedroom house used to be an HMO before the previous owners had it. Plus you have eg professionals sharing flats who could afford a flat each if prices were lower. And lots of professionals live in ex council flats - that's how my wife and I got on the housing ladder. The purpose of housing benefit/the housing component of UC is to make consumption (including of housing) more equal than the underlying income distribution allows for, take it away and it becomes less equal, that's the reality.
It is a very ineffecient way of redistribution imo, and the side effect of improving the wealth of the voting landlord class, of which MPs are disproportionately in, is neither accidental nor desirable.
As I see it, the key thing about housing benefit/the housing component of UC - and the reason it exists as a separate benefit rather than being treated simply as a support to income which is what it is - is that the rate differs according to local housing costs. If you abolished it as a separate benefit you'd have to bump up UC otherwise people would starve - they'd still have to pay rent somewhere and it's not free anywhere. But you could set that at an amount that allows people to live only in the cheapest areas of the country. That would need to be higher than current rent levels in those areas because rents there would go up as eg Merthyr filled up with poor Londoners. In my opinion that would lead to worse outcomes than currently - landlords in Merthyr would be quids in apart from anything else as they reaped the capital gain - but as I understand it that is your proposal.
Not a treasury minister or civil servant so I don't really have a proposal as such, but yes would like to see housing benefit cut significantly (not eliminated, and could be done over several years to minimise transitional impact) and quite happy for that money to be spent on a mix of reducing UC taper, increasing UC and perhaps increasing the zero tax bands for income tax and NI instead.
The problem I have with this proposal is that it will exacerbate the difference between rich and poor areas and make communities less economically diverse. Eg where I live in SE London is a mixture of fairly expensive single family homes and private and socially rented flats. A lot of the lats are in properties that used to be single family homes and can be converted back into such. If people on low incomes weren't subsidised to live in our community then it would become a lot wealthier on average. Property prices might well go up as the area became more "exclusive". But as someone who values living in a diverse community it would be sad. I'm not sure it would be a net positive for there to be more areas with far higher concentrations of poor people living in them, out of sight and mind of the middle class, either.
I also live in London and lets not pretend that large parts of the population are not excluded from living in the more popular areas regardless.
If we take out those under 30ish as a special transitory case the better areas might be available to those in the top 20% of income/wealth and those in the bottom 20% supported by benefits. The middle 60% are already excluded.
Oh for sure. I guess the question is whether it would be better to have an area where only the top 25% can live instead, my answer would be no but of course other people are free to feel differently.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Perhaps someone can enlighten this uninformed American. A number of commenters have said that builders sometimes get "planning permissions" for a site -- and then don't do anything with the site for a long period of time. The commenters seem to be implying that this is a widespread problem.
OK, assuming I understand the problem, why do builders do this? Why would builders invest time and money in getting these permisions, and then make no effort to earn some money from their investments?
Obtaining planning permission increases the value of the land, and builders sometimes prefer to speculate that the value of the land will go up more so they wait rather than developing the property and selling it. Basically they are operating as land speculators rather than builders.
In a theoretical perfect market any builder who was laggardly about building on land for which they had permission would lose market share to builders who got on with it. But in this case there is such a shortage of suitable development land that the big developers can effectively block the proper functioning of a free market.
There's only really three options here. Either you dramatically increase the supply of land by abolishing planning controls, you break the stranglehold the developers have on the market by introducing the state as a serious competitor, or you do something radical with the principle of property ownership (like forcing developers to sell land at a heavy discount to the price they paid for it if not developed within a reasonable period of receiving planning permission, or making all developments involve multiple developers, competing to finish building first in the same area, somehow) to otherwise introduce more competition into the building market.
It could be possible to look at some sort of penalty or cost to holding land with unimplemented permissions, either directly through some sort of financial payment that has to be made to keep a permission alive, or by significantly shifting the planning rules so that if a plan isn't implemented any precedent value in it is lost.
If - as the government periodically tries to do - you remove most planning controls - that is no guarantee of a solution, if developers are holding onto prime sites that they own for internal or financial reasons.
Presumably a general land tax would be a good incentive to develop land.
Yes, one of the strongest arguments for a land value tax is that it would provide just such an incentive - and, of course, since planning permissions tend to increase land value, it would dissuade developers from making speculative or tactical applications without any serious intent to develop the land.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
Yes.
BTW, is anyone keeping score, as to just what percent of "facts" from this source, turn out to just as bogus?
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
I don't think Catholicism is the established church anywhere in Europe except Malta and Vatican City, though it depends how strictly you define "established".
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
Yes.
BTW, is anyone keeping score, as to just what percent of "facts" from this source, turn out to just as bogus?
From HYUFD? He's infallible. The shipping route via the Cape to Kuwait to avoid the Straits of Hormuz was something that centuries of cartographers and navigators had missed and then, with one sweep of his mighty keyboard on PB, there is was. A new geographical reality. There are many more examples. He's never wrong.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
I take it you have not read "The Churchill Factor". That sentence reads like I read it in full doesn't it?. I started it and it is quite unreadable. It is no Tom Knox thriller.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
It's wrong to hope that global warming will lead to a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and consequently colder winters for NW Europe. It is wrong.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be found, as the MP for Rhondda noted, in the fiction section.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
btw here's some clarity for you on your "Flying Bishops" from the Quadruple Lock on same sex marriage:
"It will be unlawful for religious organisations, or their ministers, to marry same-sex couples unless the organisation’s governing body has expressly opted in to do so (and that would mean the religious organisation itself opting in, the presiding minister having consented and the premises in which the marriage is to be conducted having been registered)"
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
But in Germany the Roman Catholics Church is the largest church (as you said, I don't actually know) and gay marriage is legal. In France the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and both gay marriage and abortion are legal.
Apologies, and I note it earlier in the conversation, but the denomination of the largest Church seems to be, at best, a very wobbly yardstick by which to judge these things. Were the Catholic Church to become the largest church I don't that would cause the end of certain rights enjoyed in the UK.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
I take it you have not read "The Churchill Factor". That sentence reads like I read it in full doesn't it?. I started it and it is quite unreadable. It is no Tom Knox thriller.
No, to be fair, I am extrapolating from his ability to spin an amusingly written 500-worder. I can believe it might not translate into a whole book.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
Okaaaayyyyyy....
I clearly missed that time the Catholics allowed lay clergy below the rank of bishop to marry.
Michael Cerularius would be spinning in his grave at HYUFD's comments.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
But in Germany the Roman Catholics Church is the largest church (as you said, I don't actually know) and gay marriage is legal. In France the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and both gay marriage and abortion are legal.
Apologies, and I note it earlier in the conversation, but the denomination of the largest Church seems to be, at best, a very wobbly yardstick by which to judge these things. Were the Catholic Church to become the largest church I don't that would cause the end of certain rights enjoyed in the UK.
France and Germany legalised gay marriage after we did and the Roman Catholic Church is not yet the majority Christian church there like Italy and Poland.
However as the Roman Catholic Church is now the plurality Christian Church in Germany that too might happen in a few decades.
Immigrants too tend to be more Catholic or evangelical Protestant or Muslim than the British born. If the Church of England is not the established church then it is less able to offer a more liberal alternative in England
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
Sometimes this site is surreal.
This afternoon it's like Mr Pooter crossed with His Dark Materials.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
btw here's some clarity for you on your "Flying Bishops" from the Quadruple Lock on same sex marriage:
"It will be unlawful for religious organisations, or their ministers, to marry same-sex couples unless the organisation’s governing body has expressly opted in to do so (and that would mean the religious organisation itself opting in, the presiding minister having consented and the premises in which the marriage is to be conducted having been registered)"
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
Yes so if Synod approves and some Ministers want to bless gay marriages they lawfully could
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
But in Germany the Roman Catholics Church is the largest church (as you said, I don't actually know) and gay marriage is legal. In France the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and both gay marriage and abortion are legal.
Apologies, and I note it earlier in the conversation, but the denomination of the largest Church seems to be, at best, a very wobbly yardstick by which to judge these things. Were the Catholic Church to become the largest church I don't that would cause the end of certain rights enjoyed in the UK.
France and Germany legalised gay marriage after we did and the Roman Catholic Church is not yet the majority Christian church there like Italy and Poland.
However as the Roman Catholic Church is now the plurality Christian Church in Germany that too might happen in a few decades.
Immigrants too tend to be more Catholic or evangelical Protestant or Muslim than the British born. If the Church of England is not the established church then it is less able to offer a more liberal alternative in England
Fairly confident Catholics will never be majority in Germany or the UK. Less likely than Buddhists becoming a majority in those countries.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
Okaaaayyyyyy....
I clearly missed that time the Catholics allowed lay clergy below the rank of bishop to marry.
Michael Cerularius would be spinning in his grave at HYUFD's comments.
Maybe @HYUFD is just really, really old fashioned.
Wistfully yearning for the days before the Synod of Elvira…
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Indeed it helps underprivileged skiers who could otherwise not afford to ski
Sure. ...the Guardian has found that the ski club boasts that its new clubhouse is “dedicated solely to its members”. When a reporter attempted to join the club they were told “admission requirements” include being approved by two current members, and paying a £25,000 joining fee followed by annual membership fees of £6,000...
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church in Ireland, France and Italy.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
That is entirely different from being the established church, which carries a very precise meaning that it is the church associated with the government.
And as I said originally in almost all western nations which do not have a Protestant church as established church the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination instead
Is there anything wrong with that?
Well in Italy the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and gay marriage is not legal. In Poland the Roman Catholic Church is the largest church and majority Christian denomination and neither gay marriage nor abortion are legal.
btw here's some clarity for you on your "Flying Bishops" from the Quadruple Lock on same sex marriage:
"It will be unlawful for religious organisations, or their ministers, to marry same-sex couples unless the organisation’s governing body has expressly opted in to do so (and that would mean the religious organisation itself opting in, the presiding minister having consented and the premises in which the marriage is to be conducted having been registered)"
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
Yes so if Synod approves and some Ministers want to bless gay marriages they lawfully could
As I said as it stands it is illegal under Canon and Statute Law (the latter being the key one for us) for the CofE or its ministers to marry same sex couples. If the General Synod approves gay marriage then they will change Canon Law. If Canon Law is changed then Statute Law can be changed. If Statute Law is changed then it will no longer be illegal for the CofE or its ministers to marry same sex couples.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
I take it you have not read "The Churchill Factor". That sentence reads like I read it in full doesn't it?. I started it and it is quite unreadable. It is no Tom Knox thriller.
No, to be fair, I am extrapolating from his ability to spin an amusingly written 500-worder. I can believe it might not translate into a whole book.
I have at home a compilation of Johnson's automotive road tests from the Telegraph in the 1990s. You know, the road tests where the delivered and collected mileages were the same. Clearly a Christmas present from someone who didn't like me. Anyway there are about 30 or 40 road test reports in the book. There is no technical content and the witticisms seem to translate from vehicle to vehicle. One 500 word essay may cut the mustard but he does tend to plagiarise his own work.
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Indeed it helps underprivileged skiers who could otherwise not afford to ski
Sure. ...the Guardian has found that the ski club boasts that its new clubhouse is “dedicated solely to its members”. When a reporter attempted to join the club they were told “admission requirements” include being approved by two current members, and paying a £25,000 joining fee followed by annual membership fees of £6,000...
Profits from which helped teach underprivileged children to ski
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Indeed it helps underprivileged skiers who could otherwise not afford to ski
Sure. ...the Guardian has found that the ski club boasts that its new clubhouse is “dedicated solely to its members”. When a reporter attempted to join the club they were told “admission requirements” include being approved by two current members, and paying a £25,000 joining fee followed by annual membership fees of £6,000...
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Tempting to abolish all exemptions for charities. If something is worth my support then it's worth my support even if they still have to pay tax.
The thing that's really annoying is that all of these piss-takes and dodges are so unnecessary. A billionaire is not going to suddenly find themselves short of money if they have to pay tax on building a new skiing clubhouse.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Yes I doubt I will be going far now, if I did I would prefer a better climate, not too hot but settle for less rain, even if it does make everything lush and green.
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
I take it you have not read "The Churchill Factor". That sentence reads like I read it in full doesn't it?. I started it and it is quite unreadable. It is no Tom Knox thriller.
No, to be fair, I am extrapolating from his ability to spin an amusingly written 500-worder. I can believe it might not translate into a whole book.
Calling "The Churchill Factor" a "book" is an insult to actual books.
Purchased BJ's drivel out of a $1 remainder bin. Not worth 2-cents, indeed, deserve to be paid for reading it.
Total ripoff AND utter insult to WSC.
BTW, judging from this & other sources, am I correct in doubting that Boris Johnson is REALLY the classic scholar he purports to be, and was (allegedly) certified to be by a (once) eminent English university?
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
I hope in those circumstances you'd make a donation towards the emigration funds of the poor souls who were bright enough to realise that independence would be muck and therefore to vote against it.
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Indeed it helps underprivileged skiers who could otherwise not afford to ski
Sure. ...the Guardian has found that the ski club boasts that its new clubhouse is “dedicated solely to its members”. When a reporter attempted to join the club they were told “admission requirements” include being approved by two current members, and paying a £25,000 joining fee followed by annual membership fees of £6,000...
Profits from which helped teach underprivileged children to ski
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Though I do think there would be traffic the other way far more than going south. Downtrodden northeners would flock to a booming Scotland.
Gas price (TTF) fell through another symbolic barrier, below €60, @ €56. Putin dramatically lost its gas war on Europe with grave long term consequences for Russia's energy export position. And, no, it's not just the warm weather.
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Bizarre obsession with catholics overtaking CofE in the numbers game. It still won't make the Catholic Church a "national church". Nobody gives a monkeys.
Also fuck off with your fake concern about other denominations being even more homophobic than the CofE. "You've got to allow the CofE to carry on being homophobic or else we'll be even nastier".
Plenty of Christian denominations welcome same sex marriage, including, as far as I can tell, all the biggest protestant churches in other western European countries.
And the only other European nations in western Europe where the Roman Catholic Church are not the established church are in the Nordic nations, especially Denmark for example where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church still
It's not established in Ireland or France,or Italy although it has special privileges under the Lateran Treaty of 1929
Yes.
BTW, is anyone keeping score, as to just what percent of "facts" from this source, turn out to just as bogus?
From HYUFD? He's infallible. The shipping route via the Cape to Kuwait to avoid the Straits of Hormuz was something that centuries of cartographers and navigators had missed and then, with one sweep of his mighty keyboard on PB, there is was. A new geographical reality. There are many more examples. He's never wrong.
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Tempting to abolish all exemptions for charities. If something is worth my support then it's worth my support even if they still have to pay tax.
The thing that's really annoying is that all of these piss-takes and dodges are so unnecessary. A billionaire is not going to suddenly find themselves short of money if they have to pay tax on building a new skiing clubhouse.
What we need to do is -
1) Everyone who wants to run a charity has to submit to an audit to see how much actual charity they do. A criteria for percentage of income to be spent on a charitable object should be set. 2) The creation of a category of non-profit organisation. Most amateur sport clubs are really this. Again, some sensible criteria for this. Lesser tax advantages, but lower requirements than (1)
Penny Mordaunt has urged Church of England bishops to allow gay marriage ahead of their historic vote, marking the first intervention by a cabinet minister on the issue.
Ms Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and MP for Portsmouth North, has written to the Bishop of Portsmouth, calling on him to to “recognize the pain and trauma” that failure to recognise same-sex marriage causes to “many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second class citizens within our society”.
Currently, according to canon law, no Church of England minister can bless or marry gay couples. Ms Mordaunt’s interjection marks the first time that a serving cabinet secretary has called for the issue to be reformed within the Church of England. She also warned that if bishops failed to approve same-sex marriage, the issue would only “fester and detract” from any positive contribution from the institution.
Her comments also come as next month, bishops will present their long-awaited findings to the General Synod – the Church’s legislative body – on whether the ban on gay marriage could be overturned.
Given a 2/3 majority for major change is needed in the House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity, I doubt there will be drastic change at Synod next month.
Evangelicals will block full endorsement of homosexual marriage and liberals will block retaining only a biblical Old Testament, Pauline view of marriage as between a man and woman.
So as with women priests or divorcee marriage I expect a fudge.
Church of England priests who want to bless same sex couples marriages will be able to, those who don't won't be forced to.
There may even be more flying Bishops in the Church of England as there are now for Parishes which don't agree with women priests
The problem, in my view, isn't a fusty church failing to reflect modern values. If Christian values (or values of any other religion) reflect the preferences of aj ineffable God, it seems unlikely to me that that God - who, if we are to believe the church, has been pretty anti-gay for tge last two millenia - has now changed his mind. What seems more likely is that the church doesn't really know, and never knew, what God thinks on any given subject, but knows what society thinks and is desperately trying to reflect that back. So the problem isn't that the church is wrong, it's that we listen to the church at all. We shouldn't be telling it what to think or do, we should be gently removing it from the decision-making process.
Western society you mean. In most of Africa and Asia there is no legal homosexual marriage, same with most of Eastern Europe and Italy and in some parts of North Africa and the Middle East and South Asia homosexuality is still illegal.
For those who are members of churches the position of that Church is significant. If the Church of England as the established church in England allows its clergy to conduct same sex marriage in England if they wish that will be a significant moment (Jesus for example never said anything against homosexual marriage)
But the church in those places is imply reflecting those societies' value back at it too. The problem is not that the church's - any church's views are 'wrong' - it is that the church doesn't have the insight it claims into what 'right' and 'wrong' are: the fact that its views are so mutable, and always seem to match the views of the society it operates within, suggest very strongly that it doesn't 'know' what God thinks, it is just winging it based on what it thinks society wants to hear. It is therefore adding no value to the decision making process. I'm not saying religion should be abolished - I do think it has a value - but that value isn't to the decision making process. Those of us who don't believe should neither tell those who do what they should think, nor pay any mind to what churches think the 'right' course of action is - because they have no more insight than anyone else.
Disestablish. Don't let religious organisations act as state registrars. Obviously let people get married in any religious ceremony they want. Just make them go to the registry office afterwards if they want a state-registered marriage. Of course churches should be allowed to say what they think is right and wrong. (And perhaps they do sometimes have more insight than those who don't think much about what's right and what's wrong. I'll judge that on each issue.)
No because if the Church of England allows homosexual marriages by its priests then the moment you disestablish the Roman Catholic Church, which takes a much harder anti gay marriage line, almost certainly becomes the largest Christian church in England within a decade again.
So you end up with an even harder line national Christian Church than you have now.
I also as a member of the Church of England would object to being forced to go to a registry office service I don't see as validating my marriage as well as the C of E service I do think validated it
But the Catholic Church doesn't become the national church, because: 1) If the CofE is any good, it will retain its numbers. And if it isn't, it doesn't deserve to stay as the 'national church'; but more importantly 2) in the scenario DJ41 describes, we don't have a national church at all. The secular majority simply stop listening to what the church say. The churches are free to say whatever they want, but the rest of us don't have to pay them any heed.
Do you object to registering the birth of your child in a registry office? If not, why would you object to registering your marriage? It only needs to be a 5 minute job telling the state about it. You can still celebrate it, properly, in as much depth as you consider appropriate, in a church, in front of your friends, family and God. A quick trip to Epping Registry office with your new wife when you return from honeymoon to fill in a form doesn't strike me as onerous.
Yes it does. In virtually every other nation where Christians are the majority or plurality religious group, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination. The only other exceptions are nations like Denmark where the Lutheran Church of Denmark is the established church or South Africa or Ghana where Pentecostal evangelical churches are the largest Christian group.
If the Church of England was disestablished most of the Anglo Catholics would become Roman Catholic and most of the evangelicals would become Pentecostal or Baptist as is the case in the USA for example where the Episcopalian Church is a smaller largely liberal church with hardline evangelicals and Catholics pushing against abortion and gay marriage.
The latter of course means the Christian churches become increasingly pushing a political agenda and free of being established don't give a toss what the secular majority think. Indeed with immigrants tending to be more socially conservative Christians and Muslims too.
Signing a form to register your child is not the same as having to have a second baptism service at a registry office
Russia?
Well the Eastern Orthodox Church is basically the Roman Catholic Church just with a Patriarch not Pope and even more ornate ceremony
Okaaaayyyyyy....
I clearly missed that time the Catholics allowed lay clergy below the rank of bishop to marry.
Michael Cerularius would be spinning in his grave at HYUFD's comments.
I am actually with HYUFD here. The Orthodox and Catholic feud is the narcissism of small differences. They are both the remaining State Church of the Roman Empire. A bit like Italian and Spanish both being legacy vulgar Latin.
Where I don't agree is the conflating of Pauline marriage and Old Testament marriage. Pauline marriage is the Roman view: the strict lifelong monogamy as demanded by Jesus, but with added homophobia. Old Testament marriage allowed hundreds of wives, plus concubines, plus sex slaves. That's worst than Muslim marriage, which is up to four wives plus sex slaves. Ironically the adaption from polygamy to monogamy between the OT and the NT is exactly the mindset of the religious establishment adapting the views of God to contemporary society that the Anglicans are now doing today.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Surely after 20+ years of calling for Scotland to be independent Malc isn't going to emigrate?
HarperCollins Publishers acquires memoir by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson
No publication date has yet been set.
🤑🤑
It's the upfront dosh he needs. As the second or third deadline approaches he can knock up some old nonsense in a fortnight.
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
So is this being announced now because Boris knows he is entering the twilight of his political career, or because he doesn't see the conflict of interest in taking a massive advance for his memoirs when he is thinking of a second act?
Could be both, I guess.
I'd be very surprised if Boris knew what "a conflict of interest" is.
His Memoirs will be reams of self-serving bullshit. Pass.
To be fair, that's true of most senior politicians. At least Boris's will be written with a modicum of readability.
If I want a snappy lurid read in a Memoir - which I often do - I'll go for something like Spare any day of the week over anything BoJo's likely to come up with. I just know what it'll be like. It'll be like him. More entertaining than your average politician but not actually that entertaining. More informative than your average clown but not actually that informative.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
I hope in those circumstances you'd make a donation towards the emigration funds of the poor souls who were bright enough to realise that independence would be muck and therefore to vote against it.
Only spineless lickspittle morons would vote against it. What kind of crawling creature wants or needs someone else to ru(i)n their affairs, spend their money the way they want and tell you what you will and will not do. Vile useless creatures who deserve to be spineless and crawl on their bellies. I spit on the graves of such cowardly scum.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Surely after 20+ years of calling for Scotland to be independent Malc isn't going to emigrate?
@Cookie Not a chance of it Cookie, I would fight the Wokes first.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Yes I doubt I will be going far now, if I did I would prefer a better climate, not too hot but settle for less rain, even if it does make everything lush and green.
I love the green too. And you don't get the green without the rain, unfortunately. I often fantasise about some sort of weird localised meteorology which sees heavy rain between 1 and 5 am, before another new bright sparkly days dawns.
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
I hope in those circumstances you'd make a donation towards the emigration funds of the poor souls who were bright enough to realise that independence would be muck and therefore to vote against it.
Only spineless lickspittle morons would vote against it. What kind of crawling creature wants or needs someone else to ru(i)n their affairs, spend their money the way they want and tell you what you will and will not do. Vile useless creatures who deserve to be spineless and crawl on their bellies. I spit on the graves of such cowardly scum.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
The attack on the unions is just a distraction technique by people who can't admit that the real problem facing education is underfunding. My son's school is running out of teachers, it's got fuck all to do with the unions and everything to do with funding. Meanwhile, most of the people telling us that state schools don't need more money send their kids private where the funding is double. The hypocrisy is sickening.
I think everyone recognises that education is underfunded, CR yesterday called for an overnight increase of 30% in education funding. I'd like to see a full doubling of the budget and a reduction in uni fees back to the £1k per year we paid. I'd also have fully funded childcare from age 1-4 as well as the school day running from 8am to 6pm.
I'd fund it by cutting spending on pensions, freezing healthcare spending in real terms and raising taxes on wealth (similar to how beneficial trusts are taxed), pension incomes, tapering the state pension for higher rate taxpayers in retirement and higher tax on other unearned incomes. I'd also look to eliminate all in working benefits, all housing benefits and have a review of how we pay long term sick and unemployment benefits as it's clear the system is broken and being abused by "won't works" rather than being used as a last resort for "can't works".
Eliminating Housing Benefit would result in a *massive* rise in homelessness.
You think that would concern Max?
Hm, he's not wrong though that housing benefit isn't necessarily a terribly cost-effective way of addressing the problem of the lowest-paid's inability to afford housing. Basically, I agree with Max - but first you have to 'solve' housing - which includes doing lots of things, including a massive programme of housebuilding (both private and social).
Housing benefit mostly benefits landlords through higher rents. The vast majority of flats and houses that are currently let via housing benefit would continue to be either let to similar tenants or sold off to first time buyers (which reduces the number of tenants needed as well as houses available for rent).
The current system creates an inflationary spiral of rents and is bad for the taxpayer, good for landlords, and averagish for tenants needing support.
Or they would be let to private tenants able to pay a higher rent than those no longer having housing benefit could afford to pay.
Assuming the landlord still wants the rental income rather than to sell.
A better solution to reducing housing benefit is to build more social homes so the landlord is the local authority or housing association not private landlords
Why would this richer private tenant living in a nicer place choose to move to the one previously supported by housing benefit? Even if they did, their home now comes back onto the market and can be taken by a different tenant.
We still have x homes and y number of people.
If we got rid of all housing benefit you would see a reduction in the number of homes available at the cheapest end as it wouldn't be economically profitable. But reducing housing benefit significantly, especially in areas of higher rents will have very little impact on supply.
If the property was in London for example for which there is always more demand for private rental properties than supply.
If you abolished housing benefit or slashed housing benefit it would therefore significantly increase homelessness and supply of properties available for those on low incomes to rent in London in particular unless there was a big increase in building of new social housing at the same time
Demand at a given price point does not always exceed supply, if it did the price would keep rising until it didnt.
Remove govt props on housing and demand at the bottom end of the market at current prices will drop significantly as people won't be able to pay them. That will in turn lower rents. Broadly the same people who are in them now would then rent them at the lower prices. The taxpayer saves money and the landlords make less.
Your hypothesis is that if you stop paying housing benefit (or the housing component of UC, which has largely replaced it) then rents and house prices will decline but basically the same people would live in the same houses and it would simply be a transfer of resources from landlords to taxpayers. If you do the thought experiment I don't think that hypothesis is supported. The first step is you reduce the incomes of low income people. As a result they will demand less housing, but also less food, heating, clothing etc since that's what happens to consumers hit by a negative income shock. Let's leave aside that these are poor people who are probably already spending the bare minimum on all these things. Let's assume that prices are flexible and adjustment is quick. Prices of everything that low income people buy will fall, including housing. That means that while these people will still see a fall in their real incomes, it will be smaller than otherwise. Meanwhile, other people's real incomes have gone up thanks to the drop in prices, and so they can afford more of everything. As a result, they will demand more of everything - which limits the fall in prices including of housing. The net result will be disinflation including in housing. Richer households will consume more including housing - living in bigger homes. Poorer households will consume less housing - living in smaller homes - and less of everything else. Total demand for housing will be unchanged (demand=supply in equilibrium). The purpose of housing support for low income people is to support their consumption of housing relative to others'. If you remove that support, they will consume less housing (and less of everything else) while others will consume more. The idea that there would be no redistributive effects, and that landlords will be the primary losers, is fanciful. And of course in the real world the first effect would be mass homelessness followed by massive provision of more expensive emergency accommodation largely procured from private landlords. The solution to the housing benefit problem is more housing and a more equal income distribution. Props to HYUFD for talking a lot of sense on this topic BTW.
Certainly not going to disagree with more housing and more equal income distributions.
If the rich are going to consume more housing and have bigger homes, it will be through building extensions to their existing homes, not taking over social housing flats and ex council houses (unless to rent out) that are currently being occupied by those receiving housing benefit.
Plenty of people receiving housing benefit live in HMOs (most people under 35 can only claim the cost of a room in a shared house under the rules). Plenty of HMOs can be converted into large single family homes, in fact I believe our own 6 bedroom house used to be an HMO before the previous owners had it. Plus you have eg professionals sharing flats who could afford a flat each if prices were lower. And lots of professionals live in ex council flats - that's how my wife and I got on the housing ladder. The purpose of housing benefit/the housing component of UC is to make consumption (including of housing) more equal than the underlying income distribution allows for, take it away and it becomes less equal, that's the reality.
It is a very ineffecient way of redistribution imo, and the side effect of improving the wealth of the voting landlord class, of which MPs are disproportionately in, is neither accidental nor desirable.
As I see it, the key thing about housing benefit/the housing component of UC - and the reason it exists as a separate benefit rather than being treated simply as a support to income which is what it is - is that the rate differs according to local housing costs. If you abolished it as a separate benefit you'd have to bump up UC otherwise people would starve - they'd still have to pay rent somewhere and it's not free anywhere. But you could set that at an amount that allows people to live only in the cheapest areas of the country. That would need to be higher than current rent levels in those areas because rents there would go up as eg Merthyr filled up with poor Londoners. In my opinion that would lead to worse outcomes than currently - landlords in Merthyr would be quids in apart from anything else as they reaped the capital gain - but as I understand it that is your proposal.
Not a treasury minister or civil servant so I don't really have a proposal as such, but yes would like to see housing benefit cut significantly (not eliminated, and could be done over several years to minimise transitional impact) and quite happy for that money to be spent on a mix of reducing UC taper, increasing UC and perhaps increasing the zero tax bands for income tax and NI instead.
The problem I have with this proposal is that it will exacerbate the difference between rich and poor areas and make communities less economically diverse. Eg where I live in SE London is a mixture of fairly expensive single family homes and private and socially rented flats. A lot of the lats are in properties that used to be single family homes and can be converted back into such. If people on low incomes weren't subsidised to live in our community then it would become a lot wealthier on average. Property prices might well go up as the area became more "exclusive". But as someone who values living in a diverse community it would be sad. I'm not sure it would be a net positive for there to be more areas with far higher concentrations of poor people living in them, out of sight and mind of the middle class, either.
I also live in London and lets not pretend that large parts of the population are not excluded from living in the more popular areas regardless.
If we take out those under 30ish as a special transitory case the better areas might be available to those in the top 20% of income/wealth and those in the bottom 20% supported by benefits. The middle 60% are already excluded.
Oh for sure. I guess the question is whether it would be better to have an area where only the top 25% can live instead, my answer would be no but of course other people are free to feel differently.
I think if we tackled foreign ownership of property big parts of London would become more affordable for actual Londoners rather than the dodgy global elite using London as a virtual bank account to shelter the cash they've stolen from other countries.
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Tempting to abolish all exemptions for charities. If something is worth my support then it's worth my support even if they still have to pay tax.
The thing that's really annoying is that all of these piss-takes and dodges are so unnecessary. A billionaire is not going to suddenly find themselves short of money if they have to pay tax on building a new skiing clubhouse.
Yes get rid of all tax breaks is probably simplest. After all tax is for good and necessary causes anyway (even if not always optimally selected or spent).
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
I hope in those circumstances you'd make a donation towards the emigration funds of the poor souls who were bright enough to realise that independence would be muck and therefore to vote against it.
Only spineless lickspittle morons would vote against it. What kind of crawling creature wants or needs someone else to ru(i)n their affairs, spend their money the way they want and tell you what you will and will not do. Vile useless creatures who deserve to be spineless and crawl on their bellies. I spit on the graves of such cowardly scum.
It's really interesting. Me and @ydoethur aren't exactly political soulmates. But it seems like he's the only one who isn't just gonna make a completely ludicrous suggestion about education.
The problem is of course that outsiders assume education must be somehow easy to understand. Bright ones are actually the worst because they found it easy to receive.
See my edit. That's very fair. It's a bit fucking annoying to be told that I'll get up at 6:40 tomorrow and ought to be in a half an hour earlier, and that at home time I'll just make them run around a non-existent playing field for an hour or two.
Yes.
Just as it was a bit annoying to be told teachers need extra training to spot and monitor children with SEND, because apparently they're not doing it. Nothing to do with the government taking away all the support because they don't want to pay for it.
From a parents point of view teachers are not capable of diagnosin SEND children. My sons school I had a 6 month fight with because they wanted to do so when it wasnt needed. He just need correctional surgery. I also had a 6 month fight with the NHS to get him that surgery.
Upshot is we managed to keep him out of a "special school" got the surgery done and he was one of only 2kids in his year to pass the 11 plus. So frankly no dont trust teachers to decide or diagnose
It's not our fucking job.
It's not our job to diagnose it. We tend to be the first ones to spot it.
Frankly, I've had more trouble in the past persuading parents their child needs testing than the other way around.
Absolutely. Get grief for even suggesting it. Then. After all other options are exhausted nae thanks or apologies. A couple of extra hours a day would whip us into shape.
This is why @DavidL and I pointed out education reform would have such a problem with the teaching unions.
You need to understand the reason behind that.
Reform => new syllabus => new teaching plans => extra (unpaid) work outside school
Would you willingly do x00 hours work for free because management decided you are now a road engineer rather than railways
The attack on the unions is just a distraction technique by people who can't admit that the real problem facing education is underfunding. My son's school is running out of teachers, it's got fuck all to do with the unions and everything to do with funding. Meanwhile, most of the people telling us that state schools don't need more money send their kids private where the funding is double. The hypocrisy is sickening.
I think everyone recognises that education is underfunded, CR yesterday called for an overnight increase of 30% in education funding. I'd like to see a full doubling of the budget and a reduction in uni fees back to the £1k per year we paid. I'd also have fully funded childcare from age 1-4 as well as the school day running from 8am to 6pm.
I'd fund it by cutting spending on pensions, freezing healthcare spending in real terms and raising taxes on wealth (similar to how beneficial trusts are taxed), pension incomes, tapering the state pension for higher rate taxpayers in retirement and higher tax on other unearned incomes. I'd also look to eliminate all in working benefits, all housing benefits and have a review of how we pay long term sick and unemployment benefits as it's clear the system is broken and being abused by "won't works" rather than being used as a last resort for "can't works".
Eliminating Housing Benefit would result in a *massive* rise in homelessness.
You think that would concern Max?
Hm, he's not wrong though that housing benefit isn't necessarily a terribly cost-effective way of addressing the problem of the lowest-paid's inability to afford housing. Basically, I agree with Max - but first you have to 'solve' housing - which includes doing lots of things, including a massive programme of housebuilding (both private and social).
Housing benefit mostly benefits landlords through higher rents. The vast majority of flats and houses that are currently let via housing benefit would continue to be either let to similar tenants or sold off to first time buyers (which reduces the number of tenants needed as well as houses available for rent).
The current system creates an inflationary spiral of rents and is bad for the taxpayer, good for landlords, and averagish for tenants needing support.
Or they would be let to private tenants able to pay a higher rent than those no longer having housing benefit could afford to pay.
Assuming the landlord still wants the rental income rather than to sell.
A better solution to reducing housing benefit is to build more social homes so the landlord is the local authority or housing association not private landlords
Why would this richer private tenant living in a nicer place choose to move to the one previously supported by housing benefit? Even if they did, their home now comes back onto the market and can be taken by a different tenant.
We still have x homes and y number of people.
If we got rid of all housing benefit you would see a reduction in the number of homes available at the cheapest end as it wouldn't be economically profitable. But reducing housing benefit significantly, especially in areas of higher rents will have very little impact on supply.
If the property was in London for example for which there is always more demand for private rental properties than supply.
If you abolished housing benefit or slashed housing benefit it would therefore significantly increase homelessness and supply of properties available for those on low incomes to rent in London in particular unless there was a big increase in building of new social housing at the same time
Demand at a given price point does not always exceed supply, if it did the price would keep rising until it didnt.
Remove govt props on housing and demand at the bottom end of the market at current prices will drop significantly as people won't be able to pay them. That will in turn lower rents. Broadly the same people who are in them now would then rent them at the lower prices. The taxpayer saves money and the landlords make less.
Your hypothesis is that if you stop paying housing benefit (or the housing component of UC, which has largely replaced it) then rents and house prices will decline but basically the same people would live in the same houses and it would simply be a transfer of resources from landlords to taxpayers. If you do the thought experiment I don't think that hypothesis is supported. The first step is you reduce the incomes of low income people. As a result they will demand less housing, but also less food, heating, clothing etc since that's what happens to consumers hit by a negative income shock. Let's leave aside that these are poor people who are probably already spending the bare minimum on all these things. Let's assume that prices are flexible and adjustment is quick. Prices of everything that low income people buy will fall, including housing. That means that while these people will still see a fall in their real incomes, it will be smaller than otherwise. Meanwhile, other people's real incomes have gone up thanks to the drop in prices, and so they can afford more of everything. As a result, they will demand more of everything - which limits the fall in prices including of housing. The net result will be disinflation including in housing. Richer households will consume more including housing - living in bigger homes. Poorer households will consume less housing - living in smaller homes - and less of everything else. Total demand for housing will be unchanged (demand=supply in equilibrium). The purpose of housing support for low income people is to support their consumption of housing relative to others'. If you remove that support, they will consume less housing (and less of everything else) while others will consume more. The idea that there would be no redistributive effects, and that landlords will be the primary losers, is fanciful. And of course in the real world the first effect would be mass homelessness followed by massive provision of more expensive emergency accommodation largely procured from private landlords. The solution to the housing benefit problem is more housing and a more equal income distribution. Props to HYUFD for talking a lot of sense on this topic BTW.
Certainly not going to disagree with more housing and more equal income distributions.
If the rich are going to consume more housing and have bigger homes, it will be through building extensions to their existing homes, not taking over social housing flats and ex council houses (unless to rent out) that are currently being occupied by those receiving housing benefit.
Plenty of people receiving housing benefit live in HMOs (most people under 35 can only claim the cost of a room in a shared house under the rules). Plenty of HMOs can be converted into large single family homes, in fact I believe our own 6 bedroom house used to be an HMO before the previous owners had it. Plus you have eg professionals sharing flats who could afford a flat each if prices were lower. And lots of professionals live in ex council flats - that's how my wife and I got on the housing ladder. The purpose of housing benefit/the housing component of UC is to make consumption (including of housing) more equal than the underlying income distribution allows for, take it away and it becomes less equal, that's the reality.
It is a very ineffecient way of redistribution imo, and the side effect of improving the wealth of the voting landlord class, of which MPs are disproportionately in, is neither accidental nor desirable.
As I see it, the key thing about housing benefit/the housing component of UC - and the reason it exists as a separate benefit rather than being treated simply as a support to income which is what it is - is that the rate differs according to local housing costs. If you abolished it as a separate benefit you'd have to bump up UC otherwise people would starve - they'd still have to pay rent somewhere and it's not free anywhere. But you could set that at an amount that allows people to live only in the cheapest areas of the country. That would need to be higher than current rent levels in those areas because rents there would go up as eg Merthyr filled up with poor Londoners. In my opinion that would lead to worse outcomes than currently - landlords in Merthyr would be quids in apart from anything else as they reaped the capital gain - but as I understand it that is your proposal.
Not a treasury minister or civil servant so I don't really have a proposal as such, but yes would like to see housing benefit cut significantly (not eliminated, and could be done over several years to minimise transitional impact) and quite happy for that money to be spent on a mix of reducing UC taper, increasing UC and perhaps increasing the zero tax bands for income tax and NI instead.
The problem I have with this proposal is that it will exacerbate the difference between rich and poor areas and make communities less economically diverse. Eg where I live in SE London is a mixture of fairly expensive single family homes and private and socially rented flats. A lot of the lats are in properties that used to be single family homes and can be converted back into such. If people on low incomes weren't subsidised to live in our community then it would become a lot wealthier on average. Property prices might well go up as the area became more "exclusive". But as someone who values living in a diverse community it would be sad. I'm not sure it would be a net positive for there to be more areas with far higher concentrations of poor people living in them, out of sight and mind of the middle class, either.
I also live in London and lets not pretend that large parts of the population are not excluded from living in the more popular areas regardless.
If we take out those under 30ish as a special transitory case the better areas might be available to those in the top 20% of income/wealth and those in the bottom 20% supported by benefits. The middle 60% are already excluded.
Oh for sure. I guess the question is whether it would be better to have an area where only the top 25% can live instead, my answer would be no but of course other people are free to feel differently.
I think if we tackled foreign ownership of property big parts of London would become more affordable for actual Londoners rather than the dodgy global elite using London as a virtual bank account to shelter the cash they've stolen from other countries.
Nope. Contrary to the saloon bar wisdom the occupation rate of properties in London is very, very high. So who owns them is almost irrelevant. There’s someone living there, about 98% of the time.
London property prices are a function of the availability of property within vaguely commutable distance vs a growing population.
I'm having my first week off since I started as a postie. I got offered it off on Thursday (when I was working the ninth of the previous ten days - one was a Sunday, and nobody else had done my route since 9 Dec)
I've done little with the time off so far bar domestic chores, some successful culinary experiments, and planning the long weekend of my week off
On Thursday I'm going to London to stay with my Siberian friend. I'm going to meet her from work at 5pm by Green Park, then we're going for her choice of dinner between there and Soho
Then we're going to the new Soho Place theatre to see As You Like It with Rose Ayling-Ellis and Martha Plimpton
On Friday she's working from home. I'm going to go out shopping and cook for us at hers. I'm going to make a steak and herb salad
On Saturday we'll have brunch then venture into town on the tube for some lunch and shopping. We'll then, if weather permits, pubcrawl our way to Hammersmith and Barnes across the river for the evening's entertainment
We're going to meet my Mum and Dad for dinner at the Rick Stein's in Barnes, and hopefully my piano maestro friend and his wife, before his show that we're going to see at the Bulls Head
If any of you live near enough to Barnes to be there on Saturday (at 8pm), I couldn't make a stronger recommendation than pay the £13 for a ticket
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Though I do think there would be traffic the other way far more than going south. Downtrodden northeners would flock to a booming Scotland.
If there's one thing an Indy Scotland won't be doing its "booming". It'll be austerity on steroids.
We have a spare room and will be happy to accommodate a chastened malcy.
“The UK has become the third-most important country in the world for chief executives trying to expand their businesses, according to a prominent survey, the first time it has broken into the top three”
The DCI says "It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer."
And that is a big part of the reason he got away with it for so long. Logic and experience show that someone who is abusive will find jobs that create opportunities for them to carry out their abuse. Policing is a perfect cover.
It is absolutely believable that such offences could have been committed by a serving police office and the police need to understand and accept reality.
Given the serial catalogue of such stories involving the Met, it's entirely believable, sadly.
Relevant question being, is this still the tip of the iceberg, or are they beginning to get an accurate sense of the reality they denied until Sarah Everard was murdered?
It seems those people hyper-ventilating about Gender Recognition Certificates should be more concerned about Police Warant Cards.
No they should not , they should be just as worried that yet another group of men have access to women's safe places..
Hi @malcolmg Will you be welcoming Rishi's decision to strike down the legislation?
YES, even though it should be none of England's business as we should be independent. It would never have happened in that case as Sturgeon would have known it was political suicide. This way she has a good excuse as usual.
You do realise that IndyScotland will be Wokey-Heaven with the current lot in charge. You may need to emigrate.
They will not be in charge though, their days are numbered. Whether any other lot will be any better is debateable but as you say I could always emigrate. That would not happen unless daugher and grandsons came as well though. Doubt she would get rid of horses or dogs etc and boys settled so I would be stuck.
Where would you go, though? House prices in Berwick and Carlisle would be going through the roof...
Though I do think there would be traffic the other way far more than going south. Downtrodden northeners would flock to a booming Scotland.
If there's one thing an Indy Scotland won't be doing its "booming". It'll be austerity on steroids.
We have a spare room and will be happy to accommodate a chastened malcy.
@burgessian That is kind of you indeed but I think I will survive even if I had to work till I dropped.
Comments
Though to be fair most Muslim Imams take a harder line on gay marriage too
The working titles for volumes 1 to 3 might be; "World beating governance", "Churchill, my part in his victory", " Brexit: The Haynes Manual".
The New York State Nurses Association union reached tentative deals with Mount Sinai Health System and Montefiore Health System, which operates three hospitals in the Bronx that had been struck. The nurses had been arguing that immense staffing shortages have caused widespread burnout, hindering their ability to properly care for their patients."
I expect more of these strikes in the US, and think "burnout" will be one of the biggest reasons for them.
Both "sides" have a clear blocking minority on Synod, so the question is who is willing to settle for what?
Could be both, I guess.
But it might make a Newman out of him.
Here in Seattle, believe that is the reason (excuse) for the giant hole in the ground in downtown next to City Hall.
In Italy homosexual marriage is still not legal
BTW, is anyone keeping score, as to just what percent of "facts" from this source, turn out to just as bogus?
Lateran treaty was revised in 1984.
Catholic Church is the largest
Christian denomination instead
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/16/gina-lollobrigida-dies-la-lollo-beat-the-devil
During her salad days, of course.
Looks at snow wistfully.
"It will be unlawful for religious organisations, or their ministers, to marry same-sex couples unless the organisation’s governing body has expressly opted in to do so (and that would mean the religious organisation itself opting in, the presiding minister having consented and the premises in which the marriage is to be conducted having been registered)"
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
Apologies, and I note it earlier in the conversation, but the denomination of the largest Church seems to be, at best, a very wobbly yardstick by which to judge these things. Were the Catholic Church to become the largest church I don't that would cause the end of certain rights enjoyed in the UK.
However as the Roman Catholic Church is now the plurality Christian Church in Germany that
too might happen in a few
decades.
Immigrants too tend to be more Catholic or evangelical Protestant or Muslim than the British born. If the Church of England is not the established church then it is less able to offer a more liberal alternative in England
What's the fuss about - same as private schools being charities isnt it?
Wistfully yearning for the days before the Synod of Elvira…
...the Guardian has found that the ski club boasts that its new clubhouse is “dedicated solely to its members”. When a reporter attempted to join the club they were told “admission requirements” include being approved by two current members, and paying a £25,000 joining fee followed by annual membership fees of £6,000...
That is how it all works.
The thing that's really annoying is that all of these piss-takes and dodges are so unnecessary. A billionaire is not going to suddenly find themselves short of money if they have to pay tax on building a new skiing clubhouse.
Purchased BJ's drivel out of a $1 remainder bin. Not worth 2-cents, indeed, deserve to be paid for reading it.
Total ripoff AND utter insult to WSC.
BTW, judging from this & other sources, am I correct in doubting that Boris Johnson is REALLY the classic scholar he purports to be, and was (allegedly) certified to be by a (once) eminent English university?
https://twitter.com/julianpopov/status/1614992279453765639
BTW, is anyone keeping score, as to just what percent of "facts" from this source, turn out to just as bogus?
From HYUFD? He's infallible. The shipping route via the Cape to Kuwait to avoid the Straits of Hormuz was something that centuries of cartographers and navigators had missed and then, with one sweep of his mighty keyboard on PB, there is was. A new geographical reality. There are many more examples. He's never wrong. What we need to do is -
1) Everyone who wants to run a charity has to submit to an audit to see how much actual charity they do. A criteria for percentage of income to be spent on a charitable object should be set.
2) The creation of a category of non-profit organisation. Most amateur sport clubs are really this. Again, some sensible criteria for this. Lesser tax advantages, but lower requirements than (1)
Where I don't agree is the conflating of Pauline marriage and Old Testament marriage. Pauline marriage is the Roman view: the strict lifelong monogamy as demanded by Jesus, but with added homophobia. Old Testament marriage allowed hundreds of wives, plus concubines, plus sex slaves. That's worst than Muslim marriage, which is up to four wives plus sex slaves. Ironically the adaption from polygamy to monogamy between the OT and the NT is exactly the mindset of the religious establishment adapting the views of God to contemporary society that the Anglicans are now doing today.
https://theconversation.com/amp/shamanism-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-fastest-growing-religion-in-england-and-wales-196438
First we are all going to move to Epping and take over the local council though.
London property prices are a function of the availability of property within vaguely commutable distance vs a growing population.
I've done little with the time off so far bar domestic chores, some successful culinary experiments, and planning the long weekend of my week off
On Thursday I'm going to London to stay with my Siberian friend. I'm going to meet her from work at 5pm by Green Park, then we're going for her choice of dinner between there and Soho
Then we're going to the new Soho Place theatre to see As You Like It with Rose Ayling-Ellis and Martha Plimpton
On Friday she's working from home. I'm going to go out shopping and cook for us at hers. I'm going to make a steak and herb salad
On Saturday we'll have brunch then venture into town on the tube for some lunch and shopping. We'll then, if weather permits, pubcrawl our way to Hammersmith and Barnes across the river for the evening's entertainment
We're going to meet my Mum and Dad for dinner at the Rick Stein's in Barnes, and hopefully my piano maestro friend and his wife, before his show that we're going to see at the Bulls Head
If any of you live near enough to Barnes to be there on Saturday (at 8pm), I couldn't make a stronger recommendation than pay the £13 for a ticket
The Church of England too has £10 billion in assets.
The Roman Catholic Church far more than that including all the treasures of the Vatican
We have a spare room and will be happy to accommodate a chastened malcy.
“The UK has become the third-most important country in the world for chief executives trying to expand their businesses, according to a prominent survey, the first time it has broken into the top three”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-17/uk-jumps-into-the-top-three-countries-for-growth-bosses-say