A Bogus Consultation

The Government's Consultation on Same Sex Marriages is clearly bogus.

They have already decided what they intend to do, and the consultation is a cynical attempt to make it look as though they have some sort of mandate to do it.  They have not. Nor do they have the power, the competence nor the right to abolish marriage and replace it with a meaningless romantic construct.

I was going to analyse the Consultation document, but awoke to find that The Thirsty Gargoyle has done a far better job that I would have done, here.

It is also worthy of note that the survey can only be completed once from one computer: so those of us married couples with only one computer will find that one of us is excluded.  Likewise, those who have access to several, or to iPads etc, have multiple votes.

Laurence 'The Bones' England has produced another fascinating bit of analysis, showing who is actually funding the LGBT lobby, here. Does that explain why it is such a priority for a government which (one might imagine) has more pressing concerns to address?

Finally, the assurance offered to pacify religious people that they will not be required to conduct Same Sex Marriages are worth precisely the same as the assurances we were given in '67/68 that nobody would be forced to participate in abortions against their will - that is absolutely nothing.

For the agenda here is not about equal legal rights -that has already been achieved with Civil Partnerships - it is about culture change: legislating for equal esteem and approval.  And while the Church (and the other Christian denominations, and religions) continues to witness to the truth, the battle will continue.

UPDATE: An important, if rather unpleasant, question that has not been addressed is that of consummation of so-called same sex marriages.  Cranmer has blogged on it: unpleasant reading but a very important subject.