No.

Not at all. Your entitled to your opinion and, knowing you as I do, I'm sure you'll have a jolly good reason for it.

*You're

legally speaking the rights and privileges are exactly the same whether you get a civil partnership or a religious marriage.

getting gay marriage put into law is putting pressures on churches to allow ceremonies that are against their doctrine.

Now I hate it when churches moan that their rights are being infringed by the advancement of others rights but in this case they could well be.

I don't want the church of England to yield to parliament and give sanctioned gay marriage unless the church can honestly vote in favour of it

given the fact that they recently had a vote on the issue of allowing women into the clergy, and they voted to keep women out. I doubt they would vote to let gays in

So why should they be forced to when gay people can get a civil ceremony that is exactly the same

Now churches that would legitimately vote in favour and would honour such marriages good on them, I would have thought the Quakers would, but parliament effecting doctrine is in my eyes a bad thing

I think that you make a very good point.

At the end of the day, legally it's only the name of the ceremony that's different.

The name of the ceremony has religious connotations. its untidy

and I know that about the us. You forget that each state is a country. so saying texas is different from new york is like saying england is different from France.

Now if federal law has standards on marriage then it shoukd have the same standards for the civil equivalent.

So each state can be different as long as they adhere to the over aching federal standard

But, opposite sex couples still get 'married' regardless of whether or not the ceremony is religious. I guess it's about recognising that the union of 2 gay people is no different from the union of 2 straight

people. So in that respect I suppose what you call the union is important. A wedding isn't always a religious ceremony.

No a wedding isn't. but a marriage should be the word has a religious etymology

yes

I agree with gay people having the same rights and privileges as any other married person.

if you reference my previous rambling such changes nowadays are made by vote or other such structured systems.

So yes their tenants can be changed but where they were changed by kings in the past they shoukd be changed by the church body now. parliament shouldn't change religion as religion shouldn't change law.

to say that religion and law is exclusive is a simplistic view its vary much intertwined but can be replaced by rights theories. The sales thing is a difficult one

Because theoretically in britain shops have the right to deny anyone

But it doesn't happen.

So business should have the right to deny persons however the law should protect people from discriminatory practises.

in other words if it can be shown that you weren't denied a sale just because they didn't like you and were in fact denied because of discriminatory practises then that should be illegal

mmm The funny thing is the amount if openly gay clergy in britain has dramatically risen and

now that they are calling it all marriage the church has said no the gay clergy cannot get married. and the clergy will be defying them

I don't think the interracial point holds ground in debate because it was a matter of segregation. gay people aren't really segregated. and certainly aren't of lesser rights here in Europe. Black people were.

and yes eventually it will all be the same marriage but I think churches can decide on that without impacting the rights of individuals