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I was brought up to be a private person. I expect people to respect my privacy and I make a point of respecting theirs. Perhaps I’m a little touchy about it.
For example the church, in the generic sense a manmade organisation originally designed to calm the nerves of a restless population, is starting to make me laugh. It seems that one of the major Christian sects is turning to science to support its claims that gay people are abnormal; it seems that its theology is no longer sufficiently influential in the popular mind. I’m forced to ask if this particular sect will apply its new-found science to the recruitment of celibate clergy in the future as a number of its staff have been behaving ‘abnormally’ with young people in its charge for quite some time.
I also wonder if this particular sect has mirrors large enough for them all to look at before they take their next bigoted step along the road to crass hypocrisy.
However, the Christian church in general does have a long-held ideological position on same-sex marriage and it is extremely unrealistic to expect it to abandon it simply in order to move with the times. After all, the whole point of the church is to keep us, our society, on an even keel anchored to the theological certainties of the divinity. If it did not take these responsibilities seriously then it would cease to be the church and where would most of us go to be christened, married and buried whenever convenient?
The Scottish Government, as presently constituted, is engaged in a mission to make Scotland a tolerant, equal and fair-minded country. In that context it is perfectly reasonable for it to insist that people in Scotland should be free to marry whoever they wish. Love ideally knows no boundaries and therefore nor should the institution of marriage.
However, the Scottish Government seems to have decided to bring the church much closer to the state by their intention to make it illegal for any church to refuse to conduct a same-sex marriage regardless of their theological position on the issue. I’m afraid that removing the freedom of belief and conscience from the church on this issue is not a forward step. Or, to put it another way, ‘In order to create a free and just society we jailed those who disagreed with us’.
This is another disturbing sign that the infant Scottish state may have decided to be a bigger nanny than the old British state. Is the nationalisation of religion the SNP’s answer to the awful blight of sectarianism in Scotland?
Of course the church is not happy and, of course, many people are not happy with the church and so the debate will continue. The church of Jesus Christ the healer will persist in its attempt to tell us, through its fragile relationship with science, how abnormal gay people are and we will see just how much more public sympathy it loses as a result. However, the church should resist government attempts to regulate its core beliefs and force it to act against them.
If we can remove one level of bigotry in Scotland, especially since we harbour so many, it will be a huge step forward for the country. However it is simply not the business of government to tell the church who it should marry regardless of its theology and it is really not the business of the church to tell any of us who we can and cannot love. At least it wasn’t when I went to Sunday school.
Now, back to not caring about the private lives of others…
Ronnie Smith was born in Largs and now lives in Romania, working as a professional training business consultant and communication coach. He is also a teacher of political science, a political and social commentator and a writer of fiction
