Queers, Fears, and Crocodile Tears

Taking care to speak out of both sides of his mouth at once, His Grace the Most Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Primate of All England and Metropolitan, has appeared on British television to say "how sorry I am for the hurt and pain, in the past and present, the Church has caused" to gays and lesbians. 

This after chairing a meeting last week of the Primates of the Anglican Communion that effectively suspended The Episcopal Church in the United States of America from the high councils of the Anglican Communion for the next three years.  Full text of the official communiqué is here. 

Why?  Because the Episcopal Church loves teh gayz so much they even marry them!  Horrors!  What terrible wickedness!  It's just the worst thing in the world!  Isn't it?

Meanwhile, the heads of the backwoods Anglican churches in Africa, South America, and other places are shouting hallelujah at this blow they have given - with Welby's help - to the "evil of homosexuality."  Some of those archbishops have outspokenly pushed for things like the infamous Kill-the-Gays bill in Uganda, and similar measures elsewhere.

All this is the latest chapter in the slow-motion breakup of the Anglican Communion - all on account of the filthy, nasty, perverted, unnatural gays, like you and me - a pity in one sense, but if the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to end up as merely the tool and titular head of a bunch of howling, foaming, murderous homophobes, that's his lookout.

The American church, of course, has been entirely independent of the Church of England since 1776, and will keep right on loving the gays, as newly installed Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says, more charitably than your Head Trucker is able to do:

Wikipedia map of the Anglican Communion,
comprising 38 provinces and 85 million members,
the third-largest Christian denomination in the world, after
the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Click to enlarge.  For legend, click here.

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:

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