Though it seems change is on the horizon for marriage equality in England, the Church of England released a statement that it cannot support civil partnership between same-sex couples because it would “alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history.”
This comes after the government began talks of allowing marriage equality, and though religious officials have been assured they would not be required to perform these ceremonies, the Church of England’s statement insists that will be the inevitable outcome. The European Court of Human Rights, of which England is a member, has legal precedence that if a member state legally recognizes marriage equality, then those marriages must be recognized in the same way that opposite-sex marriage is recognized. Thus, it’s possible that the courts would be forced to perform these ceremonies as they would for any opposite-sex ceremony.
The Bishop of Sheffield, Rt. Rev. Steven Croft, said to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, “Whilst this is being presented as a kind of minor extension of what marriage means, actually, from the point of view of the Church and of society, it is a really, really fundamental change to an institution which has been at the core of our society for hundreds of years and which for the Church is not a matter of social convention but of Christian doctrine and teaching.”
The church also criticized the government’s belief that civil partnerships between same-sex people are as significant as the partnerships by opposite-sex couples. However, a recent YouGov poll of 2,074 people in England, Scotland and Wales, found that 71 percent of people supported marriage equality in England. The same poll also found that three in five people of faith support plans to extend civil marriage.
Photo: sheffield.anglican.org
