SCP respond to Redefinition of Marriage Consultation

19 November 2011

The Scottish Christian Party has published its response to the SNP Government’s consultation on the redefinition of marriage and adding religious ceremonies to civil partnership registration.

The Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, MSP, writes in her ministerial foreword to “The Registration of Civil Partnerships, Same Sex Marriage: A Consultation”: “We tend towards the view that religious ceremonies for civil partnerships should no longer be prohibited and that same sex marriage should be introduced so that same sex couples have the option of getting married if that is how they wish to demonstrate their commitment to each other.”

The Scottish Christian Party has published a detailed rebuttal of this consultation document and concludes: “It will be a mark of perpetual disgrace, and a blot on Scottish history, that no sooner has the Scottish National Party formed a majority Government than one of its first measures is a moral and social revolution of such a nature that it will destroy the time-honoured understanding of marriage, undermine the family, threaten the well-being of children, disrupt Scottish education, compromise healthy living, satisfy the communistic agenda of cultural Marxism, introduce anomalies into Scottish Law which will leave a legacy of legislative confusion, and be a stick with which the aggressive homosexual lobby can continue to beat Christians.”

As if it is not enough for humanists to wreck our morality, for bankers to wreck our economy, for the SNP to wreck the United Kingdom, but now the wrecking ball must aim at the social fabric of society itself, courtesy of the SNP Government in Holyrood, trying to steal a march on David Cameron doing the same in Westminster.  What a competition - this race to the bottom!

In a wide-ranging critique, the Scottish Christian Party response criticises the consultation itself as well as the SNP proposals in the consultation, and concludes that it has no confidence in those introducing this proposal.

Selective choice
It criticises the lack of choice in the consultation which only gives two outcomes: 1. adding religious ceremony to homosexual partnerships or 2. going the full way and redefining marriage to include homosexual partnerships.  It fails to mention other choices such as the status quo, or abolishing or modifying civil partnerships to remove the inequality already present in them.  It compares these two choices to the Alex Salmond’s choice of two questions for the Independence Referendum.

Legal loopholes
It explains that the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 has created a legal loophole that allows polygamy to be recognised in Britain and that allows the recognition of homosexual ‘marriages’ legalised overseas.  “Polygamy and homosexual ‘marriages’ which are legalised overseas are coming into the UK through this legal loophole more easily than illegal immigrants slip through our border controls.”  It says this loophole should be closed to protect our borders.

Lack of foresight - no mention of children nor of the consequences upon the family
It claims that the primary failing of the consultation document is that it does not discuss the effect on families and children after redefining marriage, so that these effects are not costed.  It criticises the inadequate and faulty definition of marriage in the consultation document, upon which faulty basis the SNP Government now wish to redefine marriage.

It accuses the Scottish Government of failing to see nor discuss the many implications of this change.  “It fails to address adequately the effect upon families, children, schools, society, employment, churches and public finances in redefining marriage.”  If marriage is redefined, then according to the European Convention on Human Rights homosexuals will have a right to a family, which can only be by adoption and In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF).  The economic, social and psychological cost of this are a price not worth paying.

It draws attention to the unequal benefits granted to civil partnerships, which are really homosexual partnerships, and recommends that to become genuine civil partnerships the concept of sexuality should be taken out of them altogether or they should be abolished.  Because it is civil, it is inappropriate for Government to legislate to have religious ceremonies or religious celebrants to be associated with them.  This will only cause employment problems.

Learning from history
In redefining marriage, the Government is stepping outside its legitimate sphere of influence, and the SCP warns that politicians are ignoring the long history of the struggle for ecclesiastical and civil rights in the UK. 

The 16th century Reformation re-established the sovereignty of God in the Church, and in the 17th century the sovereignty of God overthrew the doctrine of the divine rights of kings.  After Oliver Cromwell established a Parliamentary democracy, the role of the monarch, parliament and the church were revisited and established, although differently in Scotland and England.  In the 18th century, the humanistic Enlightenment began the arduous task of replacing the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of the people.  Gradually the authority of the Bible and the law of God were replaced with the wishes of the majority in Parliament.  We now have the morality of the majority, which may be in Holyrood, Westminster or Brussels - and these are competing with each other.  Having opened our borders to the legislative opinions of other countries in Family Law, the majority around the world will determine the definition of marriage in the UK.  There is now a concerted international attempt by the humanistic lobby, and the aggressive homosexual lobby in particular, in every continent of the world to redefine marriage to include homosexual partnerships.  This goes under the disguise of equality, and the Scottish Christian Party deconstruct this argument in their response.

The SCP warns: “it is not necessary for the state to consider religious ceremonies in relation to civil partnerships. Otherwise, the state is taking on more than is its province if it should attempt to do so. The history of the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century, the Covenanting struggle of the 17th century, the Patronage controversy of the 18th century and the Disruption of the 19th century should warn the governments in Holyrood and Westminster of the danger of the state over-reaching itself in dictating matters of religion.”

It calls homosexual marriage an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and calls on the Scottish Government to abandon these proposals.

Recent history
The SCP has been warning about this sexual revolution for years, but it seems to have caught many Christians by surprise.  In 2007 we warned where the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007 (SORs) were leading, but few Christians took heed.  The Court of Appeal has used these Regulations to assert that sexual orientation rights take precedence over religious conscientious objection.

In 2011 we reminded Christians repeatedly throughout the Scottish Parliamentary election what would happen in this Scottish Parliament.

No Opposition
Who will now speak with a distinctly Christian Voice in the Scottish Parliament?  The SCP submission notes: “There is no political party in the Scottish Parliament which has articulated the Christian attitude to homosexual behaviour as explained in the Holy Scriptures, in this 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible.  If good government requires a strong opposition, then the composition of this Scottish Parliament will not yield balanced nor good legislation on this matter.”

Dumb dogs
David Cameron has muzzled the Scottish Tories, and the Church of Scotland General Assembly has muzzled itself with a self-imposed embargo on discussing sexuality until its theological commission reports.  This reminds us of dumb dogs which cannot bark at the very time we need them to bark.  “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” Isaiah 56:10.

The Scottish Christian Party has warned that this sexual revolution is moving in the direction of paedophilia, and it has explained how paedophilia plans to be introduced to the UK.  It accuses politicians of being hood-winked by the equalities agenda.

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