Bishop of Burnley vows to oppose gay marriage change (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Why shouold a religious organisation which wants to carry out gay marriages be prevented form doing so.

Religious organisations which don't want to carry out gay marriages will have the legal right not to do so.

Everyone can just follow their own conscience and interpreatation of various religious texts. Not have another religion impose their ideas on them.

The headline should have been, "BISHOP BASHES GAY MARRIAGE".

No, suffragan bishop Goddard! Your church will be exempted from conducting same-sex marriages, so why are you still opposed to it? Some religious bodies, for example, the Quakers, and the Unitarian church, amongst others, have expressed an eagerness in the forthcoming bill to allow them to conduct gay marriages. It appears that the hostility your church has shown towards parliament, has resulted in a pre emptive declaration by the secretary of state, to exclude the churches of England and Wales from conducting gay weddings.

Your comments stink of hypocrisy..... Especially taking into consideration, the large percentage of gay members of the laity within your ranks.

Many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members of society are religious. You, the auxiliary bishop of Burnley, do not have the right to dictate who should, or shouldn't marry in a religious setting.

The time is nigh, when the bigotry within religious establishments is challenged successfully, and we have women bishops, and gay bishops, too!

The thought of suffragan bishop of Burnley acting as the head of the the diocese of Blackburn revolts me..... I hope you're not elevated to be the next bishop of Blackburn.... It's high time we had a liberal head in this diocese.

cathedral citi wrote:
No, suffragan bishop Goddard! Your church will be exempted from conducting same-sex marriages, so why are you still opposed to it? Some religious bodies, for example, the Quakers, and the Unitarian church, amongst others, have expressed an eagerness in the forthcoming bill to allow them to conduct gay marriages. It appears that the hostility your church has shown towards parliament, has resulted in a pre emptive declaration by the secretary of state, to exclude the churches of England and Wales from conducting gay weddings.

Your comments stink of hypocrisy..... Especially taking into consideration, the large percentage of gay members of the laity within your ranks.

Many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members of society are religious. You, the auxiliary bishop of Burnley, do not have the right to dictate who should, or shouldn't marry in a religious setting.

The time is nigh, when the bigotry within religious establishments is challenged successfully, and we have women bishops, and gay bishops, too!

The thought of suffragan bishop of Burnley acting as the head of the the diocese of Blackburn revolts me..... I hope you're not elevated to be the next bishop of Blackburn.... It's high time we had a liberal head in this diocese.

Iagree with you. If the Church of England would pull their head out of the sand,look around and count how many churches are up for sale. Plenty of them could attract more of the gay lesbian trans gender communities to use them.Then the churches would not have to close.Good luck Bishop Goddard and Gordon Birtwistle maybe next one to be converted to a plumbers merchants could be St Peters in Burnley. Who knows.

cathedral citi wrote:
No, suffragan bishop Goddard! Your church will be exempted from conducting same-sex marriages, so why are you still opposed to it? Some religious bodies, for example, the Quakers, and the Unitarian church, amongst others, have expressed an eagerness in the forthcoming bill to allow them to conduct gay marriages. It appears that the hostility your church has shown towards parliament, has resulted in a pre emptive declaration by the secretary of state, to exclude the churches of England and Wales from conducting gay weddings.

Your comments stink of hypocrisy..... Especially taking into consideration, the large percentage of gay members of the laity within your ranks.

Many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members of society are religious. You, the auxiliary bishop of Burnley, do not have the right to dictate who should, or shouldn't marry in a religious setting.

The time is nigh, when the bigotry within religious establishments is challenged successfully, and we have women bishops, and gay bishops, too!

The thought of suffragan bishop of Burnley acting as the head of the the diocese of Blackburn revolts me..... I hope you're not elevated to be the next bishop of Blackburn.... It's high time we had a liberal head in this diocese.

Iagree with you. If the Church of England would pull their head out of the sand,look around and count how many churches are up for sale. Plenty of them could attract more of the gay lesbian trans gender communities to use them.Then the churches would not have to close.Good luck Bishop Goddard and Gordon Birtwistle maybe next one to be converted to a plumbers merchants could be St Peters in Burnley. Who knows.

Man in frock versus man in frock, its all handbags at two paces.

Return of the Magnificent se7en wrote:
Man in frock versus man in frock, its all handbags at two paces.

Sounds like your kind of Saturday night out.

Since we did not vote for a theocracy and since the C of E will banned from conducting same sex ceremonies so that they can no longer claim that they will be "forced" to officiate, is the Bishop not pleased that smaller denominations that do want to officiate will be free to do so? Surely he is favour of religious freedom for these groups? Despite his unelected status the Bishop seems to expect the right to influence civil law? He is certainly reinforcing the case for House of Lords reform with it's 26 unelected bishops.
As a party that claims to favour small government and individual freedom the Tory party is right to introduce this legislation They should be a party of social progress allied to financial responsibility.

When it comes to labour well, they usually claim to be in favour of equality and fairness hmmmm?

An unelected Bishop trying to influence the civil law even though his religious grouping will be banned from conducting same sex marriages so that they can not claim they will be "forced" to participate? I can't recall having the opportunity to vote for or against a theocracy at the last election? Isn't the Bishop pleased that smaller religious groupings will have the right to participate, as some want to? That's freedom of religion Bishop?

The tories who claim to be in favour of small government and individul freedom have it right on this occasion.

Forget gay marriages wot about the Christian terrorist going crazy in the USA

The only people who keep campaigning for this right to become commonplace are the gays who say its okay to be so. Well it aint in my eyes and it should be a criminal offence. Being gay is wrong and I don't care what all these wrongdoers keep going on about, they are criminals. Its just not right. Maybe we can give them their own island like the falklands or something and they can live in peace away from normality.

As others have rightly said, the Bishop of Burnley is an unelected individual who clearly holds some very prejudiced views - not really the best stance from a man of the cloth, and hardly to way to encourage people to attend church services when his views are so out of step with the general population he seeks to preach to.
However, Burnley's MP, Mr Gordon Birtwistle said: “I will vote against gay marriage. Civil partnerships are fine. Gay marriage is just not on.”
MPs are elected by the people they serve. So a very clever comment form someone who is elected to serve the WHOLE community - especially when he has such a small majority!
According to the Government's own figures (the same Government that Mr Birtwistle is currently a member of), there are around 3.6m gay people in the UK - that's around 6% of the population.
Burnley has a population of 85300 people. If the gay population were evenly spread across the entire country, Burnley would have 5118 gay residents.
At the General Election of 2010, Gordon Birwistle had a majority of 1818. (Burnley's gay population could be as much as 2.8 times more than Mr Birtwistle's meager majority)
If, at the next election, the entire gay population of Burnley decide to take revenge on Mr Birtwistle for the comments he has made and refuse to vote for him, I suggest he'd better start looking for alternative employment sooner rather than later!

"However, Burnley's MP, Mr Gordon Birtwistle said: “I will vote against gay marriage. Civil partnerships are fine. Gay marriage is just not on.”
MPs are elected by the people they serve. So a very clever comment form someone who is elected to serve the WHOLE community - especially when he has such a small majority!"

exactly he represents the WHOLE community, the vast majority are not gay.
i have nothing against gays , gay marriage or anything else.
but why should church goers have to change long held beliefs?

find a church that will marry gays and go there but respect the views of those who don't want to.
EVERYONE is entitled to an opinion, just because it's different to yours doesn't make it wrong.

I totally agree with the bishop's views. A marriage should be between a man and a woman.

frank wrote:
"However, Burnley's MP, Mr Gordon Birtwistle said: “I will vote against gay marriage. Civil partnerships are fine. Gay marriage is just not on.”
MPs are elected by the people they serve. So a very clever comment form someone who is elected to serve the WHOLE community - especially when he has such a small majority!"

exactly he represents the WHOLE community, the vast majority are not gay.
i have nothing against gays , gay marriage or anything else.
but why should church goers have to change long held beliefs?

find a church that will marry gays and go there but respect the views of those who don't want to.
EVERYONE is entitled to an opinion, just because it's different to yours doesn't make it wrong.

But that's exactly what the government is proposing to do? Have you not read the proposals Frank? So that no church will be required to conduct same sex ceremonies against their wishes and those that have expressed opposition will not be allowed to. Those that wish to will be able to hold ceremonies. But the Bishop still wants to ban tax paying, consenting adults from marrying each other even though it will be nothing to do with him or his church:-).

Frank, jo so we're clear, I didn't actually state what my opinion is. The point was that an MP is supposed to represent the people - not his own opinion. How does Mr Birtwistle know that the opinion he holds personally (and the one that he intends to determine his vote in a parliamentary vote) is representative of the majority of his constituents?

To be fair to the Bishop he seems to reflect the position that the Church of England now holds. A group of people who don't much like Britain as it is get together at the weekend to dress up in funny clothes, sing some songs that they all know and try to behave as some of their ancestors did.

Again, to be fair, this is quite harmless. Lots of groups of people do this sort of thing and they do no real harm. During the week they hold down normal jobs and have normal lives and suffer no real discomfort other than some gentle teasing by friends and colleagues..

The problem comes when the Cof E wants to combine its position of 'stop the world, we want to get off'' with insisting on how the rest of the country must live.

davidinburnley wrote:
As others have rightly said, the Bishop of Burnley is an unelected individual who clearly holds some very prejudiced views - not really the best stance from a man of the cloth, and hardly to way to encourage people to attend church services when his views are so out of step with the general population he seeks to preach to.
However, Burnley's MP, Mr Gordon Birtwistle said: “I will vote against gay marriage. Civil partnerships are fine. Gay marriage is just not on.”
MPs are elected by the people they serve. So a very clever comment form someone who is elected to serve the WHOLE community - especially when he has such a small majority!
According to the Government's own figures (the same Government that Mr Birtwistle is currently a member of), there are around 3.6m gay people in the UK - that's around 6% of the population.
Burnley has a population of 85300 people. If the gay population were evenly spread across the entire country, Burnley would have 5118 gay residents.
At the General Election of 2010, Gordon Birwistle had a majority of 1818. (Burnley's gay population could be as much as 2.8 times more than Mr Birtwistle's meager majority)
If, at the next election, the entire gay population of Burnley decide to take revenge on Mr Birtwistle for the comments he has made and refuse to vote for him, I suggest he'd better start looking for alternative employment sooner rather than later!

Of course, thats where the country is going wrong, a general election has nothing to do with economic and foreign policy, its about whether Brian can marry Gary, no wonder the countries knackerd, I think someone needs to take his danny la rue pink tinted furry spectacles off.

It sounds like some of the people who have commented on this thread seem to have a belief that gay is a disease that they can catch and it poses an imminent threat on their heterosexuality.
I am ashamed to say that I used to think like that (beliefs handed down from parents). If you required surgery or such, and the doctor/surgeon was gay, would you not want them treating you? Would you be scared you might catch something off them? You need to get off your high horse and see the bigger picture. Religion is the cause of much discrimination and the sooner it is binned in this country, the better.

Return of the Magnificent se7en: the only reason you dont like gays is that you are scared that a gay man will treat you the way you treat women and that a lesbian will take better care of a woman than you ever could.

Religion is for easily fooled idiots, who are too weak minded to think for themselves and need a man made Bronze Age book of fables to tell them what's right and wrong.

The sooner this backwards thinking scourge is consigned to the dustbin of history the better.

I suppose all the commentators critising the bishop are christians and regulary attend church, I think not, marriage is about creating a unit, and extending via procreation, if we all became homosexual the human race would soon die out, so logic states homosexuality is not a natural act. As usual a minority are trying dictate to the majority, if same sex want to have a public ceremony there are plenty of venues other than a church/mosque/synago
gue.

Excluded again wrote:
To be fair to the Bishop he seems to reflect the position that the Church of England now holds. A group of people who don't much like Britain as it is get together at the weekend to dress up in funny clothes, sing some songs that they all know and try to behave as some of their ancestors did.

Again, to be fair, this is quite harmless. Lots of groups of people do this sort of thing and they do no real harm. During the week they hold down normal jobs and have normal lives and suffer no real discomfort other than some gentle teasing by friends and colleagues..

The problem comes when the Cof E wants to combine its position of 'stop the world, we want to get off'' with insisting on how the rest of the country must live.

strange, why do you say that CofE "don't much like Britain as it is" - where have you got that from?

as for dressing up in funny clothes and singing songs they all know - is that some reference to football and rugby supporters?

a for gay marriage - to me its a strange one why any gays actually want to get married as long as civil ceremonies allow them the same statutory rights as the rest of society. what i find truly bizarre is how the CofE gets a right bashing (no pun intended) whilst nobody mentions other religions muslims, sikhs etc and their views on the issue, or indeed other branches of christianity such as the catholic church.

what is even more bizarre is that the gay community seems equally split on gay marriage with 50:50 for and against, and my understanding is the "leading" gay rights activist - peter tatchell is opposed to gay marriage.....hopeful
ly the likes of the guardian and bleeding heart liberals are giving him the same ear-bashing as the bishop of burnley.

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Excluded again wrote:
To be fair to the Bishop he seems to reflect the position that the Church of England now holds. A group of people who don't much like Britain as it is get together at the weekend to dress up in funny clothes, sing some songs that they all know and try to behave as some of their ancestors did.

Again, to be fair, this is quite harmless. Lots of groups of people do this sort of thing and they do no real harm. During the week they hold down normal jobs and have normal lives and suffer no real discomfort other than some gentle teasing by friends and colleagues..

The problem comes when the Cof E wants to combine its position of 'stop the world, we want to get off'' with insisting on how the rest of the country must live.

strange, why do you say that CofE "don't much like Britain as it is" - where have you got that from?

as for dressing up in funny clothes and singing songs they all know - is that some reference to football and rugby supporters?

a for gay marriage - to me its a strange one why any gays actually want to get married as long as civil ceremonies allow them the same statutory rights as the rest of society. what i find truly bizarre is how the CofE gets a right bashing (no pun intended) whilst nobody mentions other religions muslims, sikhs etc and their views on the issue, or indeed other branches of christianity such as the catholic church.

what is even more bizarre is that the gay community seems equally split on gay marriage with 50:50 for and against, and my understanding is the "leading" gay rights activist - peter tatchell is opposed to gay marriage.....hopeful

ly the likes of the guardian and bleeding heart liberals are giving him the same ear-bashing as the bishop of burnley.

Could be rugby and football club supporters. Morris Dancers, English Civil War re-enactment societies. Take your pick. Usually fairly harmless and add to gaiety of the nation - but none of us would want to be dragooned into sharing their pastimes.

The story is about the views of the CofE Bishop of Burnley. If any other religions want to put their heads above the parapets and say they want to impose their views on people who don't share them, I promise to give them a good kicking too.

People should only be free to do what the majority like. Not a position most of us would like if it was applied to everything.

Excluded again wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Excluded again wrote:
To be fair to the Bishop he seems to reflect the position that the Church of England now holds. A group of people who don't much like Britain as it is get together at the weekend to dress up in funny clothes, sing some songs that they all know and try to behave as some of their ancestors did.

Again, to be fair, this is quite harmless. Lots of groups of people do this sort of thing and they do no real harm. During the week they hold down normal jobs and have normal lives and suffer no real discomfort other than some gentle teasing by friends and colleagues..

The problem comes when the Cof E wants to combine its position of 'stop the world, we want to get off'' with insisting on how the rest of the country must live.

strange, why do you say that CofE "don't much like Britain as it is" - where have you got that from?

as for dressing up in funny clothes and singing songs they all know - is that some reference to football and rugby supporters?

a for gay marriage - to me its a strange one why any gays actually want to get married as long as civil ceremonies allow them the same statutory rights as the rest of society. what i find truly bizarre is how the CofE gets a right bashing (no pun intended) whilst nobody mentions other religions muslims, sikhs etc and their views on the issue, or indeed other branches of christianity such as the catholic church.

what is even more bizarre is that the gay community seems equally split on gay marriage with 50:50 for and against, and my understanding is the "leading" gay rights activist - peter tatchell is opposed to gay marriage.....hopeful


ly the likes of the guardian and bleeding heart liberals are giving him the same ear-bashing as the bishop of burnley.

Could be rugby and football club supporters. Morris Dancers, English Civil War re-enactment societies. Take your pick. Usually fairly harmless and add to gaiety of the nation - but none of us would want to be dragooned into sharing their pastimes.

The story is about the views of the CofE Bishop of Burnley. If any other religions want to put their heads above the parapets and say they want to impose their views on people who don't share them, I promise to give them a good kicking too.

People should only be free to do what the majority like. Not a position most of us would like if it was applied to everything.

as one of your good pals is wont to say "INCORRECT!".... the headline is about the bishop of burnley - but the story is, in the main, about various local politicos views on gay marriage and the coalition government plans to introduce legisaltion permitting it.

as i say in my posting - all the headlines are about the church of england, but very little is written about other groups and organisations and virtually nothing about the schism among the gay community and its own view on gay marriage

toodle-pip!

haveinalaugh wrote:
I suppose all the commentators critising the bishop are christians and regulary attend church, I think not, marriage is about creating a unit, and extending via procreation, if we all became homosexual the human race would soon die out, so logic states homosexuality is not a natural act. As usual a minority are trying dictate to the majority, if same sex want to have a public ceremony there are plenty of venues other than a church/mosque/synago

gue.

So by your (fuzzy) logic, infertile straight couples shouldn't be allowed to marry as there is no chance of procreation?

Yes or no?