Encouraging and Terrifying Things
Posted on: 5th \2010f March, 2010
I’m not entirely well right now, so today’s post is a collection of interesting things, some good and others very bad.
First of all, the Quakers are awesome people. At their national meeting last summer, they agreed to treat same sex and opposite sex relationships in the same way, and to hold religious same-sex marriages in their meeting houses.
“…We are being led to treat same sex committed relationships in the same way as opposite sex marriages, reaffirming our central insight that marriage is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses. The question of legal recognition by the state is secondary.
We therefore ask Meeting for Sufferings to take steps to put this leading into practice and to arrange for a draft revision of the relevant sections of Quaker faith and practice, so that same sex marriages can be prepared, celebrated, witnessed, recorded and reported to the state, as opposite sex marriages are.“
Further to that, it has now become legal to perform civil partnerships in religious settings. It’s not as good as proper marriage equality, but it’s a good thing.
A woman in the UK has been imprisoned for making a false accusation of rape. The BBC reports this without question:
“A woman from Gloucestershire who falsely claimed to have been raped has been sentenced to two years in prison,“
but since they go on to state:
“On one occasion, she was found naked from the waist down with gaffer tape over her mouth and her hands tied behind her,“
I have serious doubts about the way the police handled this case (remember when they killed someone last year?) and think I’ll avoid reporting any rape I suffer to the police.
Via The F-Word Blog.
5th \2010f March, 2010 at 7.34 pm
Thank you
Interesting bit is that we spent a long time doing our own marriages without reference to the state or established church when Quakers started up. This is why Meetings are now allowed to marry opposite-sex couples ourselves (along with civil registrars, CofE vicars, and some rabbis). So marrying each other outside the law isn’t the departure from tradition it might be for some. We also don’t see the marriage ceremony as performative in itself – God marries people, we just recognise this – so it’s not as big a deal as it might be for some denominations.