Church of Scotland asked to allow Gay Ceremonies

The Church of Scotland’s highest court will be asked to allow its ministers and deacons to allow civil partnership church ceremonies without being punished.

|TOP|It has been revealed by a new report that the court will be asked to put in place a system whereby a “synthetic minister” to carry out a kind of religious ceremony for same-sex couples without facing disciplinary action, said The Herald.

However, the report also includes a request to the General Assembly to agree that no minister will be obliged to conduct such civil partnership blessing ceremonies “against his or her conscience”.

The report, written up by the legal questions committee, acknowledged the controversy surrounding the issue, and deliberately chose not to include the word “blessing” in the document.

Rev Ian McLean, the committee's acting convener, said members had "very carefully" not used that word.

He said, “I have been in the Church long enough to know that the General Assembly, covering commissioners from all parts of Scotland, are going to have a wide, very diverse, range of views.”

|AD|The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, however, has condemned the new Civil Partnerships Act as weakening the “uniqueness of marriage”.

Speaking out against Westminster, the Church stated that traditional family values were not being upheld, and warned of the indirect “assault” on the Christian moral order.

The Civil Partnerships Act came into effect in December across Britain, with two Scots making history to be the first to take part in a gay civil partnership in Edinburgh.

The legal questions committee commented that the major question was whether ministers and deacons could act in ways to recognise the status given by the civil laws, according to The Herald.

“There is no current expectation that civil law will devise the equivalent of a marriage ceremony and so the Church doesn't have to consider whether ministers would become celebrants for that legal function.

Just last week Anglican Church leaders were criticised by the Archbishop of York for failing to provide sufficient guidance and management.

Dr John Sentamu launched the stinging attack on the Church hierarchy, saying that their lack of leadership has led to the Church becoming weakened in its mission to society.

In particular, Dr Sentamu commented that a lack of clarity between the House of Bishops, the Archbishops’ Council, the Church Commissioners and the General Synod was making the struggle to become an effective Church much harder.

Other Church leaders have backed the call from the Archbishop saying that the Church desperately needed to take more of a stand on issues such as the Civil Partnerships Acts to keep its integrity, and had to halt continuing quarrelling.

The Rev Mark Ireland, of the Lincoln Diocese’s Mission Division, said that the Church needed to be “winning the battle of ideas”.

“We’re working in a very hostile intellectual climate. We need to be convincing people that Christianity is true and reasonable and this is a rational decision they can make. We need to research and encourage good practise in apologetics and evangelism,” concluded Ireland.