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James Wharton

Gay Soldier, Campaigner and Writer

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Great News... If You're Not a Member of the CoE!

Posted: 12/12/2012 15:32
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Yesterday's announcement of the introduction of equal marriage was completely overshadowed by the fact that members of the Church of England would be excluded from the plans from the offset.

In an attempt to ring home the bells of true equality, the Tory plans have instead created a subsection community, offering different levels of freedom depending on what part of society one fits.

2012-12-12-20militarysandison1_341405s.jpg
The Author at his Civil Partnership in March 2010.

By being born into the Church of England and then duly christened a member before I can even remember, I'm now automatically excluded from the Equal Marriage plans leaving me in exactly the same place I was before the announcement.

I don't ever remember having the choice to becoming a member of the Church of England. Whilst serving in Iraq I remember looking down at my 'Dog Tags' and seeing the letters 'CoE' inscribed just below my blood group and thinking, how the hell did this happen? I guess it was just a natural thing, just part of who I am... a lot like my sexuality.

Of course, I could take a civil marriage in a non-religious setting, and one has to consider whether one wants to celebrate such an important occasion in an environment that on the whole has been generally hostile towards the gay community, but to simply be expelled from the plans before they've been properly introduced is unfair and outrageous.

The term 'equality' means, believe it or not... EQUAL!

People in every part of society should be offered the same opportunities. Everyone should be treated FAIRLY and with RESPECT. The Government should't be setting different bars in equality. One rule for some, one rule for others.

I'm baffled that the Catholic Church in England and Wales will now at least have the opportunity to celebrate same sex marriage, which is incredible and I hope the powers that run such organisation embrace the offer.

The Church of England, by kicking off enough of a fuss over the plans mostly through its C4M campaign, have placed enough pressure on the government for them to buckle under the stress and will now remain in the dark ages as far as modern equality is concerned.

Frankly, the Church of England has continued to push itself into its corner of discrimination. Woman bishops. Gay marriage. What next? Disabled people?

And after the results of the 2011 census have revealed that Christianity in the UK is now less popular than it was 10 years ago, I'm left thinking... How relevant is the Church of England today?
By basing values on an ancient text that's over two thousand years old, the organisation is digging it's heels into the mud and refusing to move with the times.

What do we really expect from a bunch of people who believe the earth was created in 7 days?

James Wharton's first book, Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier, is released in June 2013 by Biteback Publishing.

 

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Yesterday's announcement of the introduction of equal marriage was completely overshadowed by the fact that members of the Church of England would be excluded from the plans from the offset. In an at...
Yesterday's announcement of the introduction of equal marriage was completely overshadowed by the fact that members of the Church of England would be excluded from the plans from the offset. In an at...
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Maria Miller

Maria Miller: Why We Need the Quadruple Lock on Gay Marriage

We have been very clear that we will protect religious organisations that do want to conduct same sex marriage and as things stand that includes the Church of England. Therefore, we have to provide a specific legal protection for the Church of England to ensure that its 'duty to marry' applies only to opposite-sex couples. If we didn't do this the Church could have been vulnerable to legal challenge, and we have been clear that would be unacceptable.

 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
barrysturn
Ut Veniant Omnes
77 Fans
20:00 on 09/02/2013
Judgement is mine say-eth the Lord.

If God exists and the bIble is literally true heaven is going to be a very sparsely populated place.

Be careful about being 'proud' to be a Christian. The expression pride go-eth before the fall means the the 'big fall', not Autumn!

Oh! and don't forget the rich man, the eye of the needle and the Camel.

Personally speaking, I think I will take the down elevator. The licensing hours are better down there!
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Bigcase
4 Fans
08:20 on 18/12/2012
Being c of e as the author states is not a natural thing. As with all religions it requires indoctrination and brainwashing. His sexuality though is a natural thing.
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Orthrus
72 Fans
11:08 on 14/12/2012
Quote: "born into the Church of England and then duly christened a member"

Does that automatically exclude you from being a member of any other denomination?
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Edgar H
Keep the Press free!
101 Fans
10:03 on 14/12/2012
If you're left thinking how relevant is the C of E today, then how relevant was your post? What was the point in it, are you upset that you can't get your way?
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plachciakp
7 Fans
00:19 on 14/12/2012
What does "bother' me is that most of the "posters" criticise the CoE, because it is opposed to marrying people of the same sex and sexual orientation. I would not want to associate myself with anyone who rejects my requests. It seems quite hypocritical to criticise on one hand, and wanting their acceptance and blessing on the other.
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plachciakp
7 Fans
00:05 on 14/12/2012
Mr Wharton, you're using a misnomer to describe your sexual orientation. You may be of gay disposition, but your sexual orientation is homosexual. Using incorrect terms does only create confusion, which is not conducive to promoting of understanding and tolerance.
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Orthrus
72 Fans
11:06 on 14/12/2012
You must be easily confused.
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Trockodile
4 Fans
14:39 on 13/12/2012
I think that James' point that the church effectively "sign people up at birth" is a valid one though-so to me it is not "their club, their rules"- i.e. something like the Masons which you join as an adult after careful consideration hopefully(not saying they should be exempt from the law but the principle is more valid).
To me it is more like saying that you are a citizen of a country and as you mature you should have a say in how things are run and a vote. Yes you can leave if you don't agree with the way they run things but why should you have to? It is still your country.
Or being a member of a family-parents have a responsibility and just because a child may grow to think different things does not mean they should not belong to the family.
Imperfect analogies but perhaps you can see where I am going?
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AarghAllTheNamesAreTaken
18 Fans
12:41 on 13/12/2012
"Frankly, the Church of England has continued to push itself into its corner of discrimination. Woman bishops. Gay marriage. What next? Disabled people?"

Actually, if the C of E were to discriminate against disabled people (or people of a particular race), it would be in violation of equality laws. For some reason, they don't see this is some kind of illiberal assault on their religious freedom. Probably because, to them, "religious freedom" means "not passing laws that the largest Christian groups disagree with".
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Trockodile
4 Fans
11:35 on 13/12/2012
The thing is that the Church of England is not some sort of single voice-there are a lot of people within it (including gay clergy) who do not believe this-why should they just leave and not fight to change the system from within? They are not trying to change anything fundamental-eg any of the points solemnised by the Apostles Creed. Homosexuality is a minor point mentioned a handful of times in the bible and the "marriage" which we all accept as biblical is more traditional than anything else.
But like it or not as the state religion the Church of England has got influence. As a Scot I am amazed by the predominance of Cof E schools and the like. Thus they should be held to some sort of accountability and responsibility. It is not good enough to say that they can do as they like in this matter-it would not hold water for many of the other rules in the bible which are now seen as archaic and in humane.
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jessjesskk
Benevolent Zombie Power
268 Fans
 
08:39 on 13/12/2012
"What do we really expect from a bunch of people who believe the earth was created in 7 days?"

that sums it all

Religious people accept publicly that they are not moved by logic and rationality: they accept they don;t want to discuss their assumptions about life. based on that it is useless to ever have a rationale discussion or a logic-based and facts-based discussions with them

The core question for me is not whether gay marriage should happen in churches. The REAL key question is to understand why in a rationale country religion should have ANY say and any official influence.
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AarghAllTheNamesAreTaken
18 Fans
12:53 on 13/12/2012
Actually, I don't think most people in the C of E believe that the creation story in Genesis is literally true. However, one place where their views do conflict with reality is their position on same-sex marriage. Their rationale for opposing it is that they think God created two distinct sexes, so it is obvious that they were intended to pair up. They dress this up in flowery language and talk about the "complementarity of the sexes", and often claim that this view is based on biology. However, this notion of a gender binary is at odds with reality - large numbers of people cannot easily be classified as male or female, and the notions of "sex", "gender", "male", and "female" are messy and do not have widely-agreed definitions. As far as I am aware, the Church of England, like the Catholic Church, simply refuses to acknowledge this. They see transgender people as confused or mentally ill, ignore the existence of intersex people completely, and pretend that there is some objective definition of "male" and "female" while refusing to explain what it is.
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jessjesskk
Benevolent Zombie Power
268 Fans
 
14:27 on 13/12/2012
if you think a book tells you the story of "truth", why deciding part of the book is "true" and not the rest? if part of it is considered allegorical, why not the rest?
If you tell me that, for society stability and structure, outside of religion, a family is the basic cell of society, I may follow you there (while not agreeing) but then the question we can and should ask is why not then stick to no divorce authorized, interdiction of mariage with children , etc...
I am for FREEDOM and I refuse mentally challenged people who refuse to discuss their assumptions about life to decide for me and to impose their views on life on my life.
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romfordkid
44 Fans
07:36 on 13/12/2012
The concept of baptism in the church is wholly tradition, in that the whole church was to be the family to bring up the child. True baptism is where some one accepts Christ as their saviour and believes in him and is then baptised to show publically that they have accepted Jesus. Christianity has been here for two thousand years and will continue despite the secular people who wish to see it gone. It says in The Bible that every knee WILL bow to God.
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jessjesskk
Benevolent Zombie Power
268 Fans
 
08:41 on 13/12/2012
Christianity is one theory about what we don;t know. There are billions of other at least as credible.
The sole reason why religions persist is because children are indoctrinated by their parents.

Christianity is just much less credible than at least a billion other alternative explanations (who are probably all false by the way).
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jayjay13
120 Fans
23:55 on 13/12/2012
No, although none of us will live to see it, Jesus will go the same way as Zeus, Baal and Ra. Some other myth will pop up to take it's place. And the bible would say that wouldn't it.
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Andyin the Hague
10 Fans
01:52 on 13/12/2012
He thinks the catholic church would celebrate a gay marriage - what planet is he from? Absolutely crazy! part of the ceremony actually involves a promise about what happens after child birth. The last time Liturgy was looked at was in the 1960s and it was decided to keep the Roman Mass. Maybe he thinks that 1 billion or so catholics should change everything for a few hundred gay people? it seems that sometimes democracy in britain has been replaced by an oligarchy.

On equality - Please can I be Equally Well Off as Richard Branson
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AarghAllTheNamesAreTaken
18 Fans
12:58 on 13/12/2012
There are a lot more than a few hundred gay (and bi and trans) people. Estimates range from something like 2 to 15 per cent of the world's population (it is notoriously hard to get accurate figures, as so many people are unwilling to talk about their sexual orientation and gender identity). Of course, many of those 1 billion catholics disagree with the Vatican's position - Catholicism is not democratic. Regardless, the Vatican's position will undoubtedly soften over time - they used to demand that black people should be enslaved, but now accept them as equals.
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joshskie1
117 Fans
 
14:04 on 13/12/2012
Equality of rights is not the same as equality of material goods.
There are around 6 million LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom, which is actually about the same number of Catholics in the United Kingdom.
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lenuk
132 Fans
20:08 on 13/12/2012
Catholics comprise some 10% of the population; the LGBTQ community comprise a little over 1% of the population.
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lenuk
132 Fans
23:13 on 12/12/2012
Sorry, Jim, but it's their club and their rules.

If you don't like their rules, then its best to try and find another club that is more in line with your needs.

Or form your own club.

Their rules have been around for a long, long time and they aren't going to change -- so accept it and move on.

Wanting something that you can never have will only make you unhappy.
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jayjay13
120 Fans
23:19 on 12/12/2012
Bit rich for a club that doesn't even let you choose whether you join to then turn around and tell you that you don't meet the rules. If the church wants to keep it's primitive traditions then it needs to stop signing up people when they are babies.
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lenuk
132 Fans
00:32 on 13/12/2012
It's rather like proud parents putting their newborn's name down on the waiting list for a good private school. Your name may be on the list but it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be going there in the end.
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aphoriac
49 Fans
02:11 on 13/12/2012
If a child is christened it's because of a decision by the parents. The child effectively becomes a member of the same religion as its parents in the process, although without the full obligations and need for understanding. The primitive traditions you speak about are part of the creed and practices of the church. Christianity arose because of events that occurred 2000 years ago, which are still considered to be relevant today. In a sense it's a club, but you become a member by professing your faith. If you cease to believe, you cease to be a member. You need to understand that Christianity is a religion. Once you grasp that, things will be clearer.
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jessjesskk
Benevolent Zombie Power
268 Fans
 
08:42 on 13/12/2012
I agree with that: their crazyness, their rules.

But why is religion having ANY KIND of influence and any kind of say in the state's ruling and the country's politics???? that is the real scandal.
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Ben Wilson
Might as well laugh while you still can.
318 Fans
 
22:44 on 12/12/2012
This is of course now a matter for CofE members to debate within the church as with Women Bishops. The thing no one wants to tell you is that if the CofE only effected the UK then it wouldn't really be an issue, as with women bishops it has a lot to do with the wider Anglican church, particularly in African nations.
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