British Christian Leaders Stand Against Same-Sex Marriage

Senior prelates in both the Catholic Church and the Church of England recently announced that they would be teaming up with the Coalition for Marriage to fight the legalization of same-sex marriage in England, the UK newspaper the Tablet reported. The Coalition for Marriage is "an umbrella group of individuals and organizations in the UK that support traditional marriage and oppose any plans to redefine it," according to their website.

Peter Smith, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Southwark in London, serves as the Catholic bishops' representative on "Christian responsibility and citizenship." He made the announcement earlier this week. The organization is urging people to sign a petition that would stop England's government from introducing the Civil Partnerships Act -- a legislation that would recognize gay marriage.

Nearly 25,000 people have already signed the petition, including conservative political and religious leaders, lawyers and several more.

Smith said the act "would fundamentally change the legal purpose of marriage by removing any reference to the begetting and rearing of children." He also said, "neither the State nor the Church has the right to redefine its meaning."

Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, a prominent member of the Coalition for Marriage, was accused of homophobia for remarks he wrote in national U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail, Morning Star reported.

"Marriage will only remain the bedrock of society if it is between a man and a woman," Carey wrote. "The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way." The archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England and, by extension, the Anglican communion worldwide, which encompasses the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Peter Tatchell, Britain's most prominent gay rights advocate and coordinator of the Equal Love campaign, said that the Coalition for Marriage is "intolerant and out of touch" with the views of many English citizens.

"Its support for the ban on gay marriage is homophobic," he said. "The ban on same-sex marriage is discrimination. It violates the democratic principle that everyone should be equal before the law."

"Coalition members are entitled to believe that same-sex marriages are wrong, but they are not entitled to demand that their opposition to such marriages should be imposed on the rest of society and enforced by law."

Nevertheless, Carey said that the coalition plans to send 175,000 emails this week asking people to sign the anti-gay marriage petition, the Independent noted.

"The avowed intention to widen the scope of marriage as we see before us is a hostile strike, which rather than strengthening marriage, will destroy its meaning and diminish its importance drastically," he told a news conference in London. "The legal and theological definition of marriage is that of a man and a woman in a lifelong relationship. The Government has many difficult duties to perform on behalf of the nation it is elected to serve."

"But it is not in its gift to alter such a fundamental relationship," he added. "This matter is so serious and so important for our nation - we cannot allow this act of cultural and theological vandalism to happen."

"This is a matter of national significance," Lord Brennan QC, a Catholic peer, told the news conference. "Many, many times in our public lives, Lord Carey and I have heard the phrase 'let the people speak', this is a classic occasion for letting the people speak. We cannot afford to allow social engineering to take place producing the Orwellian results of 'parent one and parent two' instead of mother and father," he continued. "Such changes are for the people to decide on."

The U.K.'s prime minister, David Cameron, delayed the start of the two meetings in England and Wales to discuss the issue, but plans to hold a consultation next month.

Cameron's cabinet minister expressed her views about the way religion influences the government. Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim, told the Daily Telegraph that Europe has "to be confident in its Christianity" and that "militant" secularism is a danger to Europe, Philly.com reported.

"You cannot and should not extract [the] Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes," she said. "My fear today is that a militant secularization is taking hold of our societies."

Evan Harris, a former Liberal Democrat lawmaker and vice president of the British Humanist Association, fired back at Warsi and said her comments were "self-serving paranoia."

"There is nothing militant about calling for an end to blasphemy and apostasy laws or wanting religious persecution of women and gay people to end," he said. "Secular liberal democracy, which involves the separation of church and state and an end to religious privilege, is the best guarantor of religious liberty and free expression."

What is significant about the prime minister's position is that he is the head of the Tories, the conservative party, roughly the equivalent to the Republican Party in the United States.