|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Transsexual Weddings are condemned
by JONATHAN PETRE and DAVID BAMBER
TRANSSEXUALS are defying God's will and should not be allowed
to alter their birth certificates or get married, an organisation representing
more than a million British Christians has told Jack Straw, the Home Secretary.
In a strongly-worded submission timed to coincide with a new Home Office
consultation paper, the Evangelical Alliance said that transsexuality was
incompatible with "scripture and God's creation". The Home Office paper,
to be published next month, will consider plans to allow transsexuals to
alter their certificates so that they can marry. Officials fear that the
Government will face challenges in the courts if the law is not reformed.
But the alliance's unequivocal intervention, which comes amid mounting
controversy about the issue, argued that such a development would be
"fundamentally flawed". "We affirm God's love and concern for all humanity,
including transsexual people, but believe that human beings are created by
God as either male or female and that change from a given sex is not really
possible," it said. The case for transsexuals being allowed to amend their
birth certificates was "open to abuse and undermined accepted realities by
condoning illusion and denial". Such a reform would, the submission added,
lead to the "unacceptable legitimisation of currently illegitimate 'marriage'
relationships". The 50-page document, sent to Mr Straw last week, said that
while Christian transsexuals should be welcomed by churches and treated with
sensitivity, they should be denied leadership posts and should be encouraged
to revert to their original sex. Attacking liberal Christians, the alliance
said it was utterly opposed to moves in "church circles" to "accept or endorse"
transsexual relationships or allow church services to marry or bless
transsexuals. The organisation, whose leaders include senior Anglicans,
represents the fastest-growing wing of British Christianity. A person's sex
is defined in law by their birth certificate, and even if someone born a
man becomes a woman, he is still legally classed as male and cannot marry
a man. The consultation paper will set out plans to give transsexuals the
right to obtain amended birth certificates, which would automatically grant
them the legal privileges of their new sex, from social security benefits
to inheritance provisions. Other options discussed will range from no change
to full legal equality for transsexuals, but officials are understood to
favour conferring new rights to avoid a legal challenge when the European
Convention on Human Rights is incorporated into British law in October. The
alliance, whose leaders include Viscount Brentford, a friend of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said it was not convinced that transsexuals
were born "in the wrong body". Rather than undergoing "cosmetic" surgery,
it said that transsexuals should seek "holistic change" through "acceptance
of the gospel of Jesus Christ". Britain is one of only four European countries
which does not recognise transsexuals in law. The need to re-examine current
legislation was underlined last year when the Department for Employment and
Education was forced to alter regulations to allow transsexuals to be covered
by the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. This followed a ruling by the European
Court of Justice, which said that European law banned the sacking of people
simply because they had changed their sex.
The Alliance may not be convinced that
transsexuals are born "in the wrong body" but what they believe and
what are facts are two different things.It is quite obvious that in terms
of brain and physiological development that gender and sexual identity are
not as clear cut as the bible would like to think. The ignorance of this
group is appalling,and perhaps coincides with the
baroness who did not appear to know the correct
classification of C60.That
bigotry and offensive attitudes result is relatively obvious.No person is
likely to achieve anything substantial in psychological or physical terms
from accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ.
No mention is made (as far as I am aware,correct me if I'm wrong) of any
such thing as someone of unclear sexuality in the bible,indeed it is upon
this basis that the Alliance does not believe it.So if there is an example
then his beliefs are in error. If no examples exist,then the bible has nothing
to say about the circumstances that such people find themselves in.Pretty
words are no consolation to the chronic feelings someone is liable to feel
faced with having to correct "Nature's mistake".If one takes a "creationist"
view,God is incapable of error,and yet year after year,Earth is subject to
"acts of God" which imperil human lives. No doubt this will be attributed
to the Devil getting the upper hand (one wonders how this can be with an
omnipotent God capable of anything). These people are not just "confused"
and require leading back to "normality".That is what homosexuals have fought
to make apparent in recent times.Homosexuality and transsexuality are not
"sinful".It is one of the imbecilities of religion that it takes a natural
circumstance and renders painful feelings about it,by defining it as "wrong"
just because bigots find it distasteful to their own values. I can understand
marriage being off limits to anyone not in keeping with the value system
maintained by the church.But to deny transsexuals who have become one gender
from another or become the "correct" gender as far as they are concerned,is
to stigmatise them through no fault of their own. If transsexuality is
incompatible with scripture and God,then how do creationists explain the
existence of transsexuals (trapped in the wrong body) or indeed homosexuals?
If only God's creation exists,what alternate scheme brought them into existence?
Clearly God must have created these people as well as any other person,if
creationists are to be believed,and thus if they are incompatible with God,then
why did God create something that was incompatible with his own views? Clearly
this is not a God with a clear insight into what he wants. Could it not be
that this is just evangelical hate and fervour justifying alienating a segment
of the population who do not fall into their simplistic categorisations of
human nature? No,it would be absurd wouldn't it? To think that religion might
divide people and cause one community to resent another,I mean that never
happens does it? Perhaps if they read another book with some actual facts
in it,rather than relying on the ancient and antiquated mumblings of Eastern
shepherds, the esteemed clerics might not look like a pile of old Mary Whitehouse
clones uttering such empty phrases as "affirming God's love". Hasn't anyone
bothered to tell them: God does not exist,and thus any assertion based upon
the premise that he does is false. Sexuality and gender is not as simple
as "man/woman" if that were true it would not be possible to be born with
both genitalia,and it is.How much of a stretch is it to suppose that one
psychology can end up in the other's body? Just because it doesn't fit into
a neat box of simple ideas,doesn't make it wrong or sinful,it means you have
to update your simple ideas,it's called :Science. But then the church is
not known for updating it's simple ideas.The Pope has only recently admitted
that Galileo was right,and wrongly persecuted.
Only a few hundred years late.Better late than never,your eminence! Maybe
if we wait about 400 years the clergy might finally catch up with "modern
ideas" and accept that it should not have resented transsexuals as making
up a pack of lies about being in the wrong body.Perhaps by then they might
have also caught up with the idea that silly myths about beings you can't
see,feel,hear or touch,are as absurd as Thor the god of thunder,or Ra the
sun god. The idea that a transsexual should be encouraged to revert to their
original gender is abhorrent.This is akin to imprisoning someone through
no fault of their own.Why they should be forced to adopt this stance merely
because a bunch of ignoramuses have a problem with them is beyond me. Why
not force homosexuals to try a sexual liaison with the "proper" gender to
see if they like it? Or force them to act like "normal" men and women.How
absurd, how anachronistic,how offensive. How would the clergy like it if
we suggested that because they are clearly of deranged mind believing in
none existent beings they should be forced to undergo shock therapy to get
rid of their "wrong" thoughts? Doesn't sound quite so viable now does
it? How dare these people determine what aspects of nature are "wrong" and
"right",who are they to say? They are one value system which has a poor basis
in reality,if anything, it is they that should be on trial and 50 page documents
detailing the decommissioning of all church and religious activity. It is
the religious who have faulty minds,not transsexuals.There is already evidence
that the religious mind is a warped mind,whilst there is also evidence that
(potential) transsexuals are a product of a biology that tries to keep its
wheels on the tracks but by its very construction is liable to go awry once
in a while.If it didn't there would be no change,and thus no ability to ride
out and adapt to changing circumstances. The extreme attachment to basic
ideas of "rightness" and "wrongness" bedevils the religious.It allows them
to make simple minded judgements about other people's lives and dismiss them
as "faulty" or "errors to be corrected".Their may indeed be a "fault" and
PC silliness supplies a fault with so much credibility that it is passed
off as a virtue.I would not like to be deaf,or be part of the "deaf community".
Deafness is a fault.That doesn't mean the person should be dismissed, but
it can be "corrected".One should not make a whole culture out of a dysfunction.If
a new language has been the result,then this should be integrated and accepted,
but it is no big loss,if the language dies along with the culture if we stop
the dysfunction.But neither should deaf people be forced to be "normal" or
hearing if they have accepted their incapacity and can live with it. It is
not PC to speak of "faults" since these days everyone is given due credit.
Why then does the church persist in hounding people who do not fit into their
narrow minded conceptions of what "normal" is.To me to be religious is not
"normal", but I don't go around harassing people into being atheist and
"normalising" them. I doubt any transsexual would wish to be pitied any more
than a deaf person would,and in each case I doubt anyone finding themselves
in that position wishes to be recategorised merely because someone else has
a problem with their deafness or gender.People are people,not labels.And
the church's obsession with allowing one camp or another into its fold or
dismissing other groups does them no service in a humanitarian or spiritual
sense.They just look like simple ignorant bigots and I've no way of telling
that they're not.-LB
Money is the root of church Crisis
You reported that thebishops face a crisis over the draft
Churchwardens Measure (News May 7).The real underlying crisis is financial.Since
the Second World War the bishops (and General Synod) ahve by piecemeal changes
over time, centralised the church's finances and put money before God. The
bishops,who were also Church Commissioners, lacked the skills to manage the
complicated legal and administrative structure resulting from centralisation;
thus maladministration was not noticed until the shortfall was too large
to ignore - about £250 million per annum at today's monetary value.
From about 1989,this annual shortfall has been, and is being,gradually
transferred to the parishes through annual increases in the Diocesan Quota
(or parish share) greatly in excess of inflation.Sadly,the parochial system
which was originally used for the care of souls and for the delivery of pastoral
care free of charge,is now being developed into a mechanism for collecting
the large sums of money required every year. In reality the Churchwarden's
Measure is just one of the further changes towards centralisation now made
more desirable by the emphasis on money. The remedy is to seek first the
Kingdom etc (Matthew 6:33) and to revert to an endowed parochial church system.
AF Evans Trustee,Parochial Support Trust,Worcester |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|