Defining marriage to exclude gays!

I am always busy on a Thursday night, so I always miss the politics programmes. Why do all of them have to be broadcast on a Thursday? It must be boring for those not interested in politics, and is frustrating for those of us addicts who like our daily fix of politics.

I have just caught up with Thursday’s QT and a claim by Cardinal O’Brian that proposals for gay marriage are “redefining” the meaning of marriage!

The term marriage, in my experience, seems to have a much wider meaning, than the narrow one that the Cardinal wishes to restrict it to.

When I was doing woodwork in school we had to do joints, mine were never good enough because they didn’t marry together!

When I watch antiques programmes on the telly I hear the term marriage for two bits of antiquity that don’t naturally belong together but are, however, joined together – like a 19th century mirror on a 18th century dressing table.

The person trying to redefine the word marriage is the Cardinal; he is trying to claim that the word marriage can only be used to describe Holy Matrimony as accepted by the Roman Catholic Church. But he is wrong, even there.

When Catholic people were executed for the abomination of homosexuality, they were condemned for the sin of marriage of men, so the Catholic Church actually acknowledges that gay marriage exists, even if it has never approved of it, because it has murdered people for partaking in it!

If the Cardinal doesn’t want to ask God’s blessing on the marriage of two men or two women, he shouldn’t be forced to do so; but why should a Catholic dictate that I, as a Methodist, shouldn’t be allowed by law to ask God for that blessing?

In civil proceedings what practical difference is there between a civil partnership and a civil marriage? None! Why should a man-woman civil proceeding be given a different term to that of the same man-man or woman-woman civil proceeding?

Is the Pope launching a helpline a joke?

Thorough the day I have heard a number of reports about the gaff by Home Office staff regarding the Pope's visit to the UK. Almost every news service lists the jocular and insulting ideas that were suggested in the document:

Benedictine Condoms Ha! Ha!
Blessing a gay marriage Ho! Ho!
Opening an abortion clinic Ha bloody Ho!

I can see the piss take in these suggestions, I can see why Catholics are upset and I can see why some see the Vatican and the UK Government's reactions to them as rather sour faced.

But there is one thing in the list that I honestly believe is not a joke or a leg pull:

That the Pope should open a helpline for children abused by Catholic Priests and others in Church authority.

I would suggest that the person who threw this idea into the brainstorming event was serious, possibly even an adherent of Roman Catholicism.

As a non Catholic Christian preacher who has had to deal with totally unjustified tarred with the same brush bollocks over the last few months, I think that The Pope opening a helpline, or encouraging abused parishioners of all denominations to contact ChildLine 0800 1111 would be a very good idea!