[Magdalen] Bp. Wright OKs same sex weddings

[Roger Stokes]

On 29/06/2015 19:34, Sibyl Smirl wrote:
> On 6/29/15 10:04 AM, James Handsfield wrote:
>> Martin, let’s end this.  If you feel it is contrary to "moral law” as 
>> you say it to officiate at weddings of same sex couples, then don’t 
>> do it.  No one is forcing anyone else to act against his or her 
>> conscience.  But do not try to foist your beliefs on the rest of us.  
>> Let’s just agree to disagree.
>
> I expect British law on marriages and how they get done, the 
> perspective from which Martin is operating, is a bit different from US 
> law on the same.  Likewise British Bishops.  I think I've heard that 
> the parish _must_ perform marriages for anyone who asks, in England, 
> and that for some reason unknown to me, marriages can't be done outdoors.

A marriage can be refused if either party has a former spouse still 
living. That is why Prince Charles married Camilla Parker-Bowles in the 
local Register Office as her former husband was still alive. Princess 
Anne, the Princess Royal, took a different route by getting married in 
Scotland.  There is discretion whether or not to allow the marriage to 
be solemnised in church, one of tyhe criteria being if it would cause 
embarrassment and/or undermin the Church's position on marriage as being 
lifelong.

The position on same-sex marriages is different as there is no 
discretion.  Statute law bars a Church of England minister from 
officiating at such a marriage.

Roger