UK Parliament to Abolish Marriage

Watch a replay of the all-day debate in the House of Lords by clicking here.

So says the Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, in a speech during the House of Lords debate on a same-sex marriage bill today, as the Telegraph reports - emphasis mine:

In his first major intervention in the debate, the Most Rev Justin Welby said he could not support David Cameron’s same-sex marriage Bill in its current form.

He warned that the reform “weakened” the concept of the “normal” family as the basis for a strong community and replaced traditional marriage with something “less good”. . . .

Speaking on the first day of debate on the Bill in the House of Lords, the Archbishop warned that legalising same sex marriages would be a social problem, not a faith issue.

“We think that traditional marriage is a cornerstone of society,” he told peers.

“Rather than adding a new and valued institution alongside it for same gender relationships, which I would personally strongly support to strengthen us all, this Bill weakens what exists and replaces it with a less good option that is neither equal nor effective," he said.

“The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost; the idea as marriage as covenant is diminished; the family in its normal sense, predating the state, and as our base community of society, as we have already heard, is weakened.

“It is not at heart a faith issue,” he said. “It is about the general social good. So with much regret but entire conviction I cannot support the Bill as it stands.”

The Archbishop criticised the Bill for mistakenly treating marriages and weddings as the same thing. Gay couples can have equality without needing to be able to marry, he said. “Two things may be equal but different."

The Bill also fails to deliver equal rights for homosexuals because it distinguishes clearly between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage, “thus not achieving true equality”.

“The result is confusion. Marriage is abolished, redefined, and recreated, being different and unequal for different categories.”

The new definition of marriage is “an awkward shape” with same-sex and opposite sex marriages “scrunched into it” but not fitting well, the Archbishop said.

The Lords debate follows an overwhelming vote [366-161] in favour of the Marriage (same sex couples) Bill in the Commons last month.

Full text here, thanks to Grandmere Mimi who tracked it down and shared it with me.

I will post more on the debate, with some fine contributions from noble lords in support of the bill, when news video is available.

Meanwhile, your Head Trucker would like to direct your attention to the selfish, sex-crazed breeders notorious people, politely called heterosexuals, who are actually destroying the institution and have no respect at all for traditional family values:

The boarding school headmistress, her husband and the teenage pupil

Man who set up camera to catch a ghost instead catches girlfriend's affair with his 16-year-old son

Almost no couples with children who stay unmarried stay together, study claims