to feel despair at the gay marriage vote

My in-laws also assumed that I was pregnant because I was only 18 but they had to wait four years for my first baby. They were right though - I was too young and if I had waited I would have had the courage to tell my fiance that although I liked him very much I did not want to spend my life with him.

Hate the sin and love the sinner. Love better than respect. How can you respect someone who beats up his wife? Or abuses children? Yes, round and round and round....when we got married (register office) members of my loving extended family, who weren't invited, asked when the baby was due. My elder DS was born about seven years later.

Getting out of here - it is just too dangerous, as GN is sitting next to me on the settee.

And I suppose we are getting round and round again.

Shut up, jura, or I will poke you in the ribs.
Not really, she might not feed me!

(re adding solemnity to the occasion, that is)

granjura I can't add anything more to the post I have already made.

We are digressing I suppose, and maybe the issue of marriage for non-believers in Church would be worthy of another discussion.

I can absolutely see your point Greatnan, re kindness for others being more important than principles. Thanks. Funnily enough, when we made the decision not to get married in Church - it did upset some members of our family. Guess who went to see them and tell them that we were doing the right thing, and that it should be accepted and respected. Our great Vicar- who really appreciated hour honesty and respect- for our vows, and for his faith and institution. The Vicar here feels just the same.

But surely, solemnity has nothing to do with religion? Am I the only one who could not 'abuse' a Church service for the sake of 'solemnity' or a fashionable setting for the photos - not just because it would feel all wrong to take such a huge and important step via a 'lie/cham' BUT ALSO out of respect for my friends who are sincere Christians and for the Vicar too (discussions with many of my friends who are Vicars indicate clearly how uneasy and uncomfortable they can feel about this- but cannot say 'no' nowadays).

I didn't say "superior" bags. I said a church setting gives the occasion more solemnity. Please don't corrupt my posts.

bags- you grow in strength from post to post - respect!
I got married in a register office and my charming Mil was happy to come, but she would not have come if we had been married in a catholic church. As I had been an atheist from the age of 12, that was not likely to happen, but I nearly insisted on it just to spite her. It gave me a good insight into how some people think.
My daughter got married in church because she adores her future MIL, who had accepted her and her four children with open arms, and who was so thrilled to have a 'proper' marriage to attend. Both her own daughters had married abroad and she was unable to attend, although they graciously allowed their parents to pay for lavish receptions on their return home. My daughter said she would have been happily married in a tent, and 17 years later they are still deeply in love and very happy. Her own son married in church this summer, again to please his wife's family, who have a long connection with the local church. I think kindness for others is more important sometimes than principles.
I was very happy to attend both weddings and see such radiant happiness - I wasn't asked for advice, but if I had been I would have said they must do whatever made the most people happy. No christenings though, for any of my children, gc and great-gc and no religious services at the funerals of my mother, sister and brother. If anybody suggested getting in a cleric to mouth platitudes at my funeral, I would come back and haunt them.

Mishap I remember telling us about your mil before- and I totally agree that you did this for all the right reasons. I personally would not have done so- but it is just me. Our wedding day was such an important day for OH and I, and I felt it was OUR day - and therefore WE had to be happy with what we were doing and how. I would have felt as though I was lying about our marriage- and would have felt VERY uncomfortable about it. But i certainly would never criticise you for doing so. But I do object to people using the Church as a 'Holywood' or Celebrity magazine sets, or a frame for a beautiful dress. To me that smacks of total irrespect for those who do believe in the santicty of the Church and ceremony - and must be dreadful for the Vicar who must feel 'used' for the wrong reasons, for the photos and the video.

And I am an atheist. Same for gay marriage in Church, in many ways. Either you do, or you don't , in my book. Call me a puritan if you wish

What if you separate the person's behaviour from their person, graces?

Mind you, I think you're right – there are people who do not deserve respect because they choose to act in an evil way.

But even those people might hold views that are sound and able to be respected.

Views and the person holding the views are separate.

Behaviour, I agree, is harder to separate from the person, but we do try to do that with children, don't we? We try to explain to them that we still love them and that it's certain behaviour we don't like.

I think people who hold that idea are wrong to do so, but they are still people and I wouldn't wish them harm.

Cogito ergo sum. How do you separate the thoughts from the person - I know we have had all this, so please ignore, I am thinking aloud.
I can respect the sincerity of a person with misguided views, I think, an example would be religious or patriotic views that a person was prepared to die for but not the views or necessarily the person. Oh too philosophical and complicated.

I don't respect the idea that homosexuals are evil.

graces, look at the little exchange between jings and me further up this thread, in which I say something she said is bullshit. I respect jings; I do not respect the idea, which she happened to voice and which she apparently holds. that church weddings are fundamentally superior in any way to register office weddings.

What about people who think homosexuals are evil?

Do you respect them?

So, one abhors the idea that stoning to death is a good thing, but one does not abhor the person who thinks it. One abhors the ideas that have led them to think something so ridiculous.

Well I don't respect them however sincere they may think they are.
Am I going off at a whole new tangent however? Feel free to ignore.

Yes, because it quite possibly isn't entirely their fault that they hold those views. It's quite likely in fact that they've been indoctrinated with ridiculous odeas since they were infants and have had very little educatoin by which they could learn to question things and think for themselves, not to mention coming upon ideas other than what they've been told all their lives.

So even if someone thinks cruelty is a good thing, that doesn't give us an excuse for being cruel to them.

Okay, so you don't respect the belief that people should be stoned to death.

But you do respect the people who hold those beliefs.

Have I got it?

BTW, mishap, I think doing something to please someone else is often a perfectly good reason. I respect that view.

But not all views.

Sorry for the cross posting, soop, but it really gets on my wick that people can't or won't see the glaring difference between respecting views/beliefs and respecting people.

Hands up who respects the view that the punishment doled out in some countries of stoning people to death is a reasonable thing to do?

Anyone?

No, thought not.

On pain of being bombed out for repetition: it is not logically possible to respect all views. Think about it! Do you, for instance, respect the view that it's OK to flog a child for a minor misdemeanour?

It is possible, and quite easy, to respect the humanity of all people, even when they hold views that it is logically impossible to respect. So you wouldn't, necessarily, want to flog the person who thought it was OK to flog kids.