For some time now, the Anglican Communion has been exercised over the issue of same-sex relationships. As this copy of ”˜Outreach’ was going to press, Rowan Williams announced his decision to stand down as Archbishop of Canterbury. There have been many column inches written about the pressures that have led to this outcome, including those relating to this issue.
It’s high time that the Christ Church family had a mature conversation about same-sex relationships. We plan to do so at a special event in the Harwood Hall
A conversation – will it include a dialogue?
has been “exercised”?
Exorcised, perhaps.
Dialogue, and a little indaba-daba-doo.
High time?
Here in England we have half an hour to go until the end of our local elections to councils, and the election of the Mayor of London. Media does not comment until the end of that process, but if I had to make a prediction it is this:
Almost 500,000 have signed the Campaign for Marriage Petition meaning at half a million signatures it is second to the largest petition ever, three quarters of a million against a rise in fuel duty. Many of the signatories will be Conservative voters, and even those who signed probably represent only a proportion of those who voted for a government to sort out our finances and stop us ending up like Greece and are dismayed at the irrelevant and destructive tinkering which is going on. Instead, borrowing is up, people can’t get visas because as usual the government computers have fallen over, we have had granny tax, [Cornish] pasty tax, church repair tax [20%], there are 3 hour waits for visitors to get through immigration at London’s airports; and the proposal is to spend, probably billions on snooping on our emails and visits to T19. As Nigel Farage said, we are run by a bunch of college kids.
Boris may well survive, but I am sorry for the councillors who will lose their seats today, from the Conservative Party, and probably even more from the Liberal Democrats, but when people take for granted their voters and lose touch with them, that is what happens as this barometer of Conservative voters probably gives a good reading of the outlook.