6.20.2007

No one expects the English Reformation!

After helping my neighbours celebrate their same-sex wedding last weekend, this page is watching with interest the Anglican (Episcopalian in the U.S.) Church of Canada's gathering in Winnipeg this week for a heated debate on what the church's position on same-sex marriage should be.

On the one hand, full credit to the Anglicans for gutting this out and proving that Canada's same-sex marriage legislation works. Individual religious organizations to determine their own level of comfort in performing same-sex marriages and not bully the state for a one-size-fits-all approach. There are a lot of progressive Anglicans who believe that their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should enjoy the same rights, and rites, that everyone else does, and this page hopes that their arguments will prevail.

However, it's a little hard to take seriously any Anglican who cackles about the sanctity of marriage when the Church of England established itself around the fact that Henry VIII wouldn't take 'no' for an answer when he asked Pope Clement VII if he could dump Catherine of Aragon for Anne Boleyn back in 1527. Karl Marx once said that "Religion is the opiate of the masses", and some Anglicans must be putting back some pretty strong stuff to forget the last 480 years.

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