The Nuance That We Need To Capture

Whether in Scotland, or in the United Kingdom as a whole, Kate Forbes's views would certainly disqualify her from the Leadership of the Conservative Party, and probably from being a first time parliamentary candidate for that party these days. Oh, well, Jesus told us to expect far worse, and of course He has been as good as His Word.

That said, Angela Merkel voted against same-sex marriage. The Clintons, the Obamas and Joe Biden were all expressly opposed to it far more recently that it is now polite to mention. Neither Gordon Brown nor Charles Kennedy, both of whom were MPs at the time, ever voted for it at any parliamentary stage. Humza Yusuf's excuse for having missed the key Holyrood vote on it is laughable. Ian Blackford is an elder of the Free Church of Scotland. And so on. By the way, abortion is not devolved, so I have no idea why Forbes is being asked about that. You may as well ask it of a candidate for Lanchester Parish Council.

It remains the position of the Church of England that marriage can be only between a man or a woman. The Church of Scotland permits its clergy to perform same-sex marriages, but it does not require them to do so. The Church of England still forbids such ceremonies outright; blessings are something else. At the age of 54, Tony Blair voluntarily acceded to a body that will never and can never permit even those. Since you ask, I am broadly with Peter Hitchens on this one where the civil law is concerned, that it hardly matters in the midst of the destruction of marriage between a man and a woman.

I thought of the Church of England when I heard this week's edition of Radio Four's Sunday programme. A government official from Ukraine justified the outlawing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on the grounds that a soldier who belonged to it was unable to receive Communion alongside his brothers in the same unit who were members of the state-sponsored Orthodox Church of Ukraine. But of course the same would apply to a soldier who belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which was once the largest underground church in the world, and which, for all that Stepan Bandera's father was a priest of it, is now vociferously opposed to the proscription of the UOC, just as Martin Luther and William Tyndale supported Catherine of Aragon, leading the supporters of Lady Jane Grey to write Elizabeth as well as Mary out of the Succession. 

Henry VIII lives, both on the banks of the Dnieper and on the banks of the Thames. The Church of England knows that it will have same-sex marriage or its bishops would be out of Parliament and Charles III's would be its last Coronation. Earlier monarchs demanded far worse of the church that the State had created. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine is in that position right now. It is not acquitting itself any better.