Monday 3 August 2009

Quakers delight me

Hi,

Well I did not believe Quakers were ready to embrace same sex marriage but last Friday they became the first religious group in Britain to do so. Up till now many Quaker meetings have been informally celebrating same sex civil partnerships but from now on these ceremonies will be the same as Quaker opposite sex marriages which already have a legal status. (i.e. if you marry in a Quaker meeting you don't have to also visit a registry office.

Here is last Saturday's Guardian editorial:

The decision yesterday by the Quakers to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples was welcomed by campaigners such as Peter Tatchell as a trailblazing. But it is not the first time that the Religious Society of Friends has gone out in front. The Quakers not only began the British campaign against the slave trade but they could also lay claim to have invented modern campaigning, with the publication of a diagram showing the cross section of a ship in which slaves lay shoulder to shoulder. So too did they pick up the cudgels of prison reform and the treatment of the mentally ill. Banned by law from politics and the universities, many Quakers went into commerce and industry, where philanthropists such as Joseph Rowntree provided his workers with modern benefits such as free education, medical care and a pension fund. If Quakers make woolly believers (a majority believe in God but all refuse a creed to which they must subscribe), they are crystal clear on behaviour. They value the experience of inspiration and share it in largely silent worship. The Quaker church will now ask the government to change the law to allow its officers to register same-sex partnerships as marriages. But legal recognition is secondary. The exploration of radical concepts is more important, as is the belief that there is good in everyone. As George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement wrote, from prison of course: "Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone."

Best to all,

Bill on bike

No comments: