#marriageequality THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS

A letter appeared through Sydney's (Roman) Catholic Diocese this week
(Offensive letter see here)
I take some exception to its purporting ( or seeking to purport) to speak on behalf of all religious people about marriage equality.

Please note it uses the pejorative terminology "same-sex marriage" ( see a previous blog) rather than the eirenic  term 'marriage equality'

This letter should at least begin " Dear Mr Abbot: As leaders IN (sic) some religious groups...." 

This is a partisan, incomplete and non-representative group of individual religious leaders! (It could not be otherwise!)
To tackle the presumption in my particular denomination for example:
The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney,  is NOT the "leader" of Australian Anglicans.  It is quite clear that though he may speak for a number, particularly Conservative Evangelicals, he does not ( and cannot presume to) speak for all / most Anglicans. 

He is NOT the Primate. And Evangelical Anglicanism does not typify the views of many, if not most Australian Anglicans in the 21st Century

I am interested to note that a number of mainstream Christian Churches  have obviously chosen to not identify with this . Equally well, moderate Jewish and Islamic traditions are not represented.  The Buddhist and Hindu traditions are not there. Where are the indigenous voices, and the Maori and South Pacific traditions
It will be the case (unfortunately) that we will continue to struggle with this in Churches, long after the rest of the world has got over it!

A new degree of bizzaretude

Last week I was at a function where we were discussing same-sex civil unions. An openly gay person (who has been in a long term committed relationship for 27 years) made the observation that in any long-term political lobbying it would be better if the spokesperson was clearly identified as heterosexual.

I understand what this is about. But I made the observation that I had some problem with that and my opinion was that we shouldn't be requiring people to identify themselves by what is essentially private information and no else's business other than their own...viz. their sexuality!

The politician present made the observation "Obviously you are not a politician!"

I was happy to state that I was not!

But I recognise that despite all the niceties about people's privacy, about tolerance, that people are fascinated by other people's personal affairs.

But, it would seem that we have stooped to a new low in the political arena when the private affairs of our lady PM are being treated in such a cavalier fashion.

She is living in a heterosexual relationship in a way that a good number of the general populace is. Why is it in any way remarkable? Why is it my business or yours?

It would be my hope that the electorate will express its disapproval of this sort of crap, and the invasion of privacy

In a community in which so many people have chosen (and without condemnation) to live in de facto relationships, it seems to me no more or less remarkable that one of our elected leaders should be in such a relationship. It is in reality none of my business.

And even more ridiculous when half the populace now seems to live in such relationships without anyone batting an eyelid.

Clever little point

Same sex Marriage

We seem to have been totally underwhelmed by the discussion at the ALP national conference about whether or not to permit people to enter into marriage relationships with a person of the same sex.
This is not a straight forward discussion. There are all sorts of questions that have yet to be answered.
What is it really about? Is it about ensuring the not unimportant right for people to be allowed to enter into committed realtionship, and to not arbitrarily deny to some what we would advocate for others.
Or is it about who might, or might not be allowed to adopt children.
There are for the Churches, theological issues; but these are of little or no concern to the Parliament. The great religious traditions (by and large) have not seriously addressed the question of how they might honour faithful same-sex relationships. All of them more intent on demonising homosexual people.
A couple of things appear clear to me: and they are that in a world where people are fickle and exploitative it surely behoves us all to encourage commitment rather than promiscuity; and that in a compassionate world we should not arbitrarily prevent people in ordering their lives in the way that they see fit.
I may not agree with or approve of anyone's particular choices; but that doesn't give me the right to impose my world view on anyone else. Particularly when my world view doesn't seem to have genmeral acceptance any way, and I have not been able to implement it terribly well myself!

Disappointing- but not surprising

One of my colleagues was castigated in a  (semi-) public manner by our Archbishop for allegedly saying prayers with a gay couple for their relationship. This apparently had some report in the press, though I have not been able to track it down.

The subsequent castigation came in the form of a letter to the clergy by Archbishop Driver in which he told us what had happened. The priest was told to not do this again.

In his defence said priest had told the Archbishop a number of important things: 

• that this was a private occasion, 
  
• that the service was not and did not purport to be a wedding
  
• that he had (in his discussion with the couple concerned) made it plain that this would not be conducting a wedding.
  

I feel personally saddened by this. I am on record elsewhere as saying that we should be doing what we can to encourage and strengthen commitment, meaning and love in relationships. I would have thought that a principle way we do this is by saying prayers and encouraging others to join in those prayers.

Would it not be appropriate, for example, for my friend P and I to give thanks to God for our friendship over 35 years and to pray for God's continuing blessing on us? (We are not in a gay relationship...but we are both male)

Stepping out

Get Up notes that over 100 laws were passed by the Senate last night to remove discrimination against same-sex couples. It is worth thinking what these 'discriminations' might be. Some are horrendous, like people being denied equity with regard to superannuation because they happen to have lived with a same, rather than different, sex partner. So, when your partner dies if you are married or have been in a defacto relationship superannuation consideration involve workign out what your entitlement to that might be. It would seem inequitable that people who have supported each other, perhaps bought property together, shared common goals and so on should be denied equity without costly litigation.
More emotional has been an understanding who 'next of kin' might be. Numerous stories abound of same-sex partners being denied any say in funeral arrangements, often cut out completely by families who have been antipathetic to the deceased person's lifetstyle.
What ever we may personally feel about people's lifestyle choices, we have no right to discriminate against what are essentially personal and/or private decisions.
The Attorney, Robert McLelland, has reasserted that same-sex marriage is not on the books (here) . This is to be expected, if not a bit lamentable. In time it will come I suspect.
In the meantime any steps forward are to be welcomed.

We just don't get it

I imagine it will be the first of many poor jokes/comments about Portia de Rossi and Ellen de Generes who yesterday honoured their relationship by marrying each other.
The fact that they are both women is (of course) of interest but 9's morning program made the obvious comment. Ellen wore pants, Portia wore a dress. "Oh," said the idiot anchor, "does that mean Ellen wears the trousers?" "I think it does" said Karl the straight-man.
Then, I suspect, they both realised they had strayed where they probably shouldn't go.
We were told Portia wears the pants sometimes (how do they know?), then we were told Ellen was coming to Channel 9 soon...and wouldn't that be a hoot as she was absolutely fabulous...and so talented ( should they have added 'for a lesbian'?)

What gets me is why same sex relationships have to be interpreted in the parameters of male-female relationships. It is generally accepted, for example, that one of the reasons why numbers of women go into same-sex relationships after having been in different sex relationships is that they want a relationship that is on a better footing. It is often because they long for companionship, rather than the war of the sexes that they find themselves wanting to be partnered to a woman rather than an adversary.

Of course we men have some difficulty understanding this, and we make so many of the rules.

My feelings?

In a world where there is too little love and commitment, I wish all those
who seek it well. And I wonder why so many of us are hateful about those who
look in different places for what we ourselves long.