Misrepresenting Same-sex Marriage

I do the snark, Andrew Goddard does the substance.

The Bishop of Salisbury’s decision to abandon the commitment made to his diocese last year to support “marriage as it is currently understood” and to break the collegiality of the House of Bishops by rejecting the church’s teaching on marriage as set out in canon law and the Book of Common Prayer is regrettable.  He has rushed to head the campaign of those Christians whose commitment to the crudest form of Christendom politics leads them to advocate new forms of “civic religion” by providing a theological gloss to legitimate the desires of those in secular authority who want to use their state power as they see fit.  In so doing he may, however, also have done a great service.  He has helpfully highlighted the number and range of flaws and errors in the main arguments of those claiming there is a genuinely Christian case for redefining and reconstituting marriage in English law.

I’d forgotten this last point. Nick Holtam has to all intents and purposes torn up this promise he made in February 2012. If that is so then it means any private assurances clergy in Dorset gave the Bishop are equally no longer valid.