Why is it vital to call this marriage? (From York Press)

Why is it vital to call this marriage?

9:39am Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Letters

IT WOULD be courteous of those commenting on the Archbishop’s statement on marriage to address the point he was making, that the word marriage has for millennia defined a specific, generally understood social contract.

It is not simply a point of British law. It is not for Parliament to make words of a global lingua franca mean what it wants them to mean.

Sensibly, the right of two people of the same sex to commit to a life together and to benefit from the same legal advantages as a heterosexual couple is now socially accepted.

The right to celebrate that commitment is accepted. What is so important about its being called marriage? It is reasonable to say that pro-rata homosexuals seem to be more artistically creative than heterosexuals. Can they not invent a word to define the joyous celebration of a public commitment between two of them?

Since this issue has become an opportunity to slang the Church, it is ironic that the bishops – before Archbishop Sentamu was appointed – rejected a motion put to the York Diocesan Synod, which urged Parliament to modify its Civil Partnership Bill to include heterosexual couples. The Bill as passed was exclusive. Discrimination works both ways.

Maurice Vassie, Deighton, York.

• READING Archbishop Sentamu’s recent comments on gay marriage, I call into question his suitability to be the sponsor of York’s Fairness Commission.

It seems he’s only interested in fairness on his own terms and not suitable for such a role.

Tom Holvey, Ashbourne Way, York.

• JOHN SENTAMU is obviously entitled to pronounce on the Church of England’s marriage doctrine.

The problem is that the various sects want to dictate the rules for the rest of us: no divorce (Roman Catholics and others, see the campaign in Ireland); no abortions, sometimes even if the victim is as young as 11 or 12 and the rapist was her father or the parish priest (RCs and others); more than one wife at a time (Muslims and some Mormons); more than one husband at a time (some polyandrous sects); etc.

Surely the answer, which the French have had for years, is to separate civil and religious marriage, recognising only the former for tax and other governmental purposes and keeping government out of the latter.

Using the term civil partnership and taking “marriage” out of the law entirely would help, though it is not essential.

“Why do they [same-sex couples] need to go through the rigmarole of a ceremony when a blessing can be just as meaningful?” asks one of your readers.

Answer: to file a joint tax return and enjoy other advantages of conventional couples.

Brian A Jones, Brooklyn, New York.

• IN RESPONSE to Heather Causnett (Letters, January 31), while I respect everyone’s beliefs, I find it shocking that people are so against same-sex marriage.

Heather, we want to go through the ‘rigmarole’ of a wedding ceremony because we don’t want to be different. We are the same and want to be treated as such. How hard is that to understand?

I had a civil ceremony a few years ago, which makes my partner ‘my civil partner’ when in fact he should be my ‘husband’. Can you not see the difference?

John Westwood-Hill, Foxwood, York.