The Catholic Church in the UK is to campaign against plans to legalise gay marriage, writes MARK HENNESSY
RADIO 4’S Today programme was once described as the British at prayer. Within minutes of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s appearance on yesterday‘s programme, speaking about gay marriage, much of the congregation was in uproar.
Countries that have legalised gay marriage “are shaming themselves”, said the Scottish church’s leader, insisting that marriage has always meant the union of a man and a woman and cannot mean anything else.
Comparing the legalisation of gay marriage with the introduction of legal abortion in 1967, Cardinal O’Brien said a change in the law would lead to “further aberrations” and “society would be degenerated further than it has already degenerated into immorality”.
He went on: “I think it’s time now to call a halt for what you might call progress in society. I don’t call progress the things that are happening nowadays. When we talk about the thin end of the wedge – we remember that Abortion Act in 1967.
“We were told there would be clearly defined ways when abortions might take place, and now we know there’s been about seven million abortions since that happened and further aberrations are hinted at at this present time.”
Civil partnerships, though he did not approve of them, were acceptable: “If they help people of the same sex who are living together in various ways, then obviously I don’t agree with that, but accept that as the law of the land.
“But I do not accept that one can redefine the term ‘marriage’ to mean something which it has never meant before,” he declared.
“Cardinal Keith O’Brien, you shame the country with your hateful, bigoted backward views,” said one Twitter user Sophie Atherton, while TV presenter, Julian Clary said “listening to Cardinal Keith is a nauseating way to start the week”.
Mr Cameron has long favoured legalising gay marriage, though some in his own ranks are unhappy – one MP, Peter Bone, saying legalisation is “completely nuts”, while others saying that Mr Cameron is “just trying to show that he is hip”. However, opinion polls appear to show support for such a change in the law.
In January, the Anglican Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said Mr Cameron would be “imposing a dictatorship” if
he changed the law, while the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams – a long-time supporter of gay rights – equally opposed such a move.
Placed on the defensive over child abuse, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy in England and Wales is now seriously considering publishing a pastoral letter to be read to all of its congregation, opposing a change in the law.
Privately, some in the Church of England, but fewer in the Catholic Church would accept, however reluctantly, civil partnerships being renamed as civil marriages, if they thought that it would end there.
The big fear for some is that the churches will, in time, be sued if they refuse a religious ceremony.