{"id":18098,"date":"2010-02-24T16:20:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T16:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/times_leader-the_law_should_be_changed_to_allow_churches_to_hold_civil_par\/"},"modified":"2010-02-24T16:20:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T16:20:38","slug":"times_leader-the_law_should_be_changed_to_allow_churches_to_hold_civil_par","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=18098","title":{"rendered":"(Times) Leader&#8211;The law should be changed to allow churches to hold civil partnership ceremonies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Church of England has so far resisted change, arguing that if some religious groups are allowed to hold civil partnerships then the pressure on the C of E to follow suit will become intolerable. It is a feeble argument. No one is arguing that any church should be forced to conduct a civil partnership. But willing churches should not be precluded from doing so.<\/p>\n<p>Benjamin Disraeli believed the Church of England to be \u201ca part of our liberties, a part of our national character\u201d\u009d. If it has any hope of continuing in that role, the Church \u201d\u201d and the Government \u201d\u201d must recognise that our liberties today should include the right of homosexuals to register the most important promise of their lives in a church.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/comment\/leading_article\/article7036936.ece\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Church of England has so far resisted change, arguing that if some religious groups are allowed to hold civil partnerships then the pressure on the C of E to follow suit will become intolerable. It is a feeble argument.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=18098\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,48,39,50,576,74,67,389,579,635,199,114,183,184,108,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-episcopal","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-civil-unions-partnerships","category-anglican-provinces","category-archbishop-of-canterbury","category-church-of-england-coe","category-churchstate-matters","category-coe-bishops","category-england-uk","category-law-legal-issues","category-liturgy-music-worship","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-sexuality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}