Posted on 04/19/2009 5:46:29 PM PDT by zaphod3000
The first openly gay Episcopal bishop told a Studio City gathering today that the church should begin mending divisions over the issue of same-sex marriage by getting out of the civil marriage business altogether.
During a visit to St. Michael & All Angels Church this morning, the Rev. V. Eugene Robinson said he favored the system used in France and other parts of Europe in which civil marriage performed by government officials is completely separate from religious vows. In the U.S., the civil and religious ceremonies are often combined with the cleric signing the government marriage license.
"In this country, it has become very confusing about where the civil action begins and ends and where the religious action begins and ends, because we have asked clergy to be agents of the state," said Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire.
SNIP
"The church is infringing on the secular society and trying to enforce its beliefs onto the entire culture," he said. "If we can get these two things separated, we can assure every religious group, no matter how conservative, that they will never have to bless these marriages."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
The Episcopal church is a modern day disaster and if breaking into pieces in front of its own eyes. Episcopal churches around the world are breaking apart from it and it is going the way of the do-do bird.
Gene is one of the biggest reasons that some of us no longer hold with the Episcopal church.
Homosexuals & “politically correct” leftists have basically destroyed the church.
Sad, but there you are.
I thought that in some states civil marriage was indeed separate from a religious marriage.
Woo hoo Morgana you are exactly right!!!
Well, it came from this site
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/
It could be bogus
I'm game for a better source
But it's odd -- the chart you posted seems now to have disappeared.
He’s a very busy little feller, attacking marriage from every angle he can find.
He shouldn't be bishop, but I don't think it is helpful to use this kind of hateful language. Hate the sin and love the sinner and all that.
Hint: They agree with him.
‘”The church is infringing on the secular society and trying to enforce its beliefs onto the entire culture,” he said.’
Actually Mr. Robertson, the homosexualist movement and its enablers started this whole fight by trying to change the legal definition of marriage in the first place in order to infringe on the religious society and enforce its beliefs onto the entire culture. The church didn’t start this battle. Your side did. Please be intellectually honest with history.
‘”If we can get these two things separated, we can assure every religious group, no matter how conservative, that they will never have to bless these marriages.”’
This sounds very nice but we all know how it will end up. Once marriage is legally redefined, the left will then use the government to persecute the church via lawsuits, revoking tax-exempt status, and worse if we do not endorse, perform and approve of unbiblical marriages. It’s not that our side refuses to “live and let live” and “leave you alone”. It’s that your side that refuses to live and let lie and leave us alone.
I finally called the bishop's office and was informed that you will NOT be taken off the rolls unless you transfer to another Episcopal parish!!! About the only way to get around it is to transfer to the parish of a sympathetic rector, who would then erase you from his rolls and thus cause you to finally vanish from 'the system'.
In other words, everyone who fled TEC to become Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, Southern Baptist, or Unitarian-Universalist for that matter is still counted as a member!
"How conveeeeenient! Could it be . . . ?"
Friend of mine is from New Hampshire and served on several committees with this horrible man back in the day. She says, "It's all about Gene, and has always been all about Gene."
He doesn't care about much of anything except his own aggrandisement.
My religious friends here probably know I'm an atheist. They regard their marrages as between themselves, their spouses, and their God. On the other hand, if I were to marry my lady (she's not in any big rush, and neither am I, but that's besides the point) it would be just between the two of us. We sure wouldn't impose ourselves on any church, and even though she's culturally Catholic, we absolutely wouldn't expect a RCC to marry us, as I've been divorced.
I think I'm on pretty solid ground when I say that none of my fellow Freepers would have the slightest objection to the two of us marrying, even though we have zero chance of using a marriage as a vehicle for raising a family (we're both in our early 50's), and our union would be purely a civil arrangement.
What is the fundamental difference between what we would have, and what homosexuals already have in four states? Before you delve into what I call the "ick" factor, take into account that my lady and I met on a website for larger folks, and we are both heftier people. That's plenty of "ick" for a lot of straight people!
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