THE ANGLO FILE

Former Archbishop Of Canterbury Bashes PM David Cameron’s Marriage-Equality Support

Lord Carey, England’s former Archbishop of Canterbury, is back in the news with an article attacking Conservative Party PM David Cameron for endorsing same-sex marriage.

In the Daily Mail on Sunday Carey wrote that gay marriage “threatens to fatally weaken what is still one of our country’s greatest strengths—the institution of marriage.”

For thousands of years, the union of one man and one woman has been the bedrock of societies across cultures, all around the world. Marriage is now an integral part of the modern world not because of a government diktat, or a church decree, but because it has stood the test of time—and proved to be the fundamental building block for every stable society.For many centuries, Britain has known much more stability than most other nations on Earth, and marriage has been essential to our national welfare. It keeps families together. It is clear that family breakdown has a personal and societal cost – from children damaged by the experience of growing up in a broken home to the older people who are left lonely and isolated because of the break-up of their families in middle age…

Marriage is the glue that binds our country together. When a couple marries, they are not just joining with one individual, but connecting two families—and in doing so creating a support network far better than anything the state can supply.

Setting aside the factual inaccuracies in his argument—that marriage has always been a love bond between one man and one woman—Carey lays out how wonderful and essential the institution is but is steadfastly unwilling to allow a sizable segment of the population to embrace it.

He also includes that favorite straw-man argument of religious homophobes: that extending rights to LGBT people will result in the persecution of the faithful.

We know what will happen, for we have already had a taste of it—it will encourage religious discrimination. A marriage registrar from Islington believed in traditional marriage, and was disciplined by her employers for it. The elderly owners of a B&B believed in traditional marriage, and were successfully sued for it. Numerous Roman Catholic adoption agencies believed in traditional marriage, and were closed down for it.

Carey—who, in January, came to the defense of a British therapist suspended for practicing reparative therapy— knows as well as we do that those people weren’t penalized for their beliefs, but for forcing others to adhere to them.

Can a Jewish innkeeper require all his male guests to be circumcised? Can a Muslim taxi driver insist his female passengers don a burka when then get in his cab?

Apparently, the ex-archbishop has taken a page from his cronies across the Atlantic. Carey is joining the newly formed Coalition For Marriage, which would take the marriage-equality debate out of the hands of the legislature and into some kind of public vote, where he assumes bigotry and ignorance would win the day.

Jesus, this guy retired from his post in 2004—why can’t he just take up shuffleboard and powerwalking like our grandpa?
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