Selwyn’s JCR has slammed the Archbishop of York in an open letter following his comments on gay marriage.
When talking about government plans to legalise same-sex marriage, John Sentamu, an alumnus of the college, stated that “marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman” and compared people who would try to reclassify it to “dictators.”
Sentamu on a visit to Selwyn in 2006
The views were met with disgust from Selwyn students, with Lewis Bartlett, LGBT officer for the college, proposing the motion to send the letter.
“I thought it important to make it clear that the current generation of Selwyn students oppose discrimination.” Bartlett told the Tab.“In all honesty, I can’t believe we still have to campaign over this, but obviously clear sense and judgement won out.”
Over two thirds of voters decided to send the letter, which slams the Archbishop’s views as “overly simplistic” and “completely unfounded”, but includes an invitation for him to speak about them at the college.
Second year James Mottram was among those in favour of sending the letter, telling the Tab that “it’s entirely proper for the JCR to take a stand when such a prominent alumnus is publicly supporting a wrong-headed attitude.”
Sentamu joined Selwyn in 1973, becoming a priest in Cambridge six years later. He was ordained in Selwyn chapel and started his church career there as an Assistant Chaplain.
Selwyn’s move comes more than a week after the Students Union at the University of York took similar action, with Tim Ellis, YUSU president, saying that he “felt ashamed to be a member of the same city as the Archbishop”
This has made me pleased with selwyn for the first time since I got kicked out and banned from the bar for napping on the sofa briefly during may week.
Well done to everyone involved, this is exactly the sort of thing we should all be doing. Even prouder than usual to be a tab right now.
Fuck Sentamu.
LEO!
Bar has changed a lot LPR! welcome back any time!!
Maybe they kicked you out for napping not boozing? Then again, it is selwyn…
quite right! it is no longer possible to claim that marriage is a solely religious institution. it is a social one, provided for and regulated for by the state, requiring no religious affilliation at all. you can be atheist, gay, impotent, and (with one dying exception) celibate, and hate your partner, and still get married, just so long as your partner is of the other sex. if two straight men can get a civil partnership, and a gay man and a lesbian woman, with no intention of having children and with no religious affilliations can get married, so should gay couples. I wish the Church would stop pretending that it has the right to define mariage: it ain't purely religious anymore, you missed the boat a long time ago.
Is it wrong to talk of "gay" and "straight" as well? Should we never distinguish between sexual orientations in our language? Because if "gay rights" campaigners are not satisfied with a lack of discrimination, if they also want the same terms to be used regardless of sexuality, then this is the logical conclusion. Under that logic, I guess they'll just have to become "human rights" campaigners instead.
Gay rights campaigners *are* human rights campaigners, and see themselves as such. Just as women's rights and ethnic minority rights campaigners, etc., are human rights campaigners.
I'm a little confused by this, as it appears Senamu's views have been taken quite the wrong way. There seems to be a misunderstanding about his concept of "marriage". His point is that "marriage" is defined as being between a man and a woman, but, in his own words, that is not to "diminish, condemn, criticise, patronise any same-sex relationships". He supports civil partnerships which give exactly the same rights as marriages, his argument is simply that the term "marriage" cannot by definition be applied to same-sex partnerships. It seems wrong to condemn Sentamu so vehemently for his "wrong-headed attitude" and views when he is in fact acknowledging and advocating the validity of same-sex relationships, something which many figures within the church still refuse to do. Surely it is towards these homophobic individuals that such "disgust" should be directed instead of towards a man with whom the disagreement appears to be purely a linguistic one.
He was hardly validating same sex relationshops when his reason to support civil partnerships was because 'friendship is good for everyone', without ever admitting to the fact that two people of the same gender can love each other.
Separate but equal eh? Sounds good to me!
Yes, it's a matter of semantics, but that doesn't mean it's "purely linguistic": his refusal to extend the term marriage over same-sex couples requires a reason of its own to escape charges of unfair discrimination.
As opposed to…? "Not sufficiently simplistic"?
Too complicated
Marriage has traditionally been a religious institution. What I find bizarre is that one can both disapprove of what the Church of England (in this case) stands for and still want a part of something so closely linked to it. If the church line is so abhorrent, why not just have a civil partnership, which is basically the same thing as marriage without the church element?
If I were a Conservative, for example, I'd just join the Conservative party rather than campaign for Labour to change its policies so I could join. It isn't as if marriage is a human right being denied.
They're not clamouring to get married in COE churches against the will of the bishops, they just want a marriage (and for it to be called a marriage) in the eyes of the state. At the moment apparently the distinction doesn't exist.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet.
I know you were making a point…but still!
You should probably just exit, pursued by a bear.
I don't think that was the point of the name.
No, because currently churches that want to perform Civil Partnerships (and call them marriages) are forbidden from doing so. Many gay people are part of these churches rather than the CoE. Also, the CoE has taken a dogmatic approach by preventing its ministers treating the issue as a conscience issue. So many people may have an individual vicar who is pro gay marriage but forbidden from exercising his conscience.
The proposed gay marriage amendment increases, rather than diminishes, church freedom.
There are religious LGBT people as well, who would like religious marriages.
The danger with having two Acts governing two separate institutions (Civil Partnerships and civil marriage) is that although the rights assigned to each may be the same currently, what's to stop future Governments changing the rights and legal significance of them, if they are not actually the same thing (Act) under the law? It's much easier to do this if they are governed by two separate laws, as currently. For example, David Cameron's old plan of giving tax breaks to married couples to encourage "stable marriages and families" might theoretically not be extended to those in civil partnerships, even though they can also have stable partnerships and families.
Civil partnership is not marriage without the church element. That's 'civil marriage'.
Semantics? No. If you define marriage as something which can only take place between a man and a woman, you necessarily end up demeaning committed same-sex relationships by not recognising them as such. The church's limited definition of marriage has no place in modern society.
The chuch's "limited definition of marriage" is the only definition that's relevent, as it is from the church that marriage as an institution stems. They define it as a sacred union between a man and a woman, gay people therefore cannot marry one another.
It is a different matter as to whether or not you create a secular marriage, open to both hetero and homosexual relationships but you can't force on the church a definition of one of their sacred ceremonies that they don't agree with. Sentamu is completely right.
Also, just because you don't follow the church, doesn't mean nobody else does. I'm sure the church's opinion of marriage has significance with religious people, or do they not have a place in modern society either? Don't try and define your opinions as logic.
why is the church's definition relevant? it isn't under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (i.e. the marriage act). The Act is a state definition of marriage, achieved by democratic representation in Parliament. It may have historic roots in the Church, but it has been for a very long time, and in its current form since 1973, a STATE definition. The State must therefore justify why two men cannot achieve that legal status with that legal name.
Nobody likes lawyers
I think the idea is that 'civil partnerships' are seen to be a second-rate type of union for those who are religious. Just because the Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman doesn't mean it's right. The Bible says a lot of crap that we no longer agree with, so why should Senatmu's Biblical definition of marriage still be acceptable?
because unjust laws saying that it's legal to steal from goyim, etc. would tangibly affect people if they were still implemented, whereas semantics has no tangible affect. A civil partnership is legally identical to a marriage. It's afforded all the same rights and so on. Homosexuals aren't disadvantaged by it.
So, what, by that logic it would be perfectly legitimate to refer to non-Jews as Goyims? I don't hear any respectable religious figure saying derogatory terms like that are ok because they don't "tangibly affect people." So why should it be ok to maintain an anachronistic definition of marriage?
Anyway, the example you use is from the Old Testament, which isn't really relevant to a debate where people are discussing Jesus' definition of marriage in the New Testament…
I'd be interested to know which New Testament verses you are referring to in which Jesus defines marriage…
It doesn't matter, God just spoke to me and said the Bible is wank anyway.
But because they are currently governed by separate Acts under the law, the rights and privileges afforded to each can be more easily changed by future Governments, so that they may no longer be equal in the future. That's the problem with "separate but equal".
This is excellent work by the LGBT Rep at Selwyn. Calling the article 'screw you sentamu' is a bit degrading though; both to the quality of what they wrote and the respect we should perhaps show towards an alumnus of the college.
We should possibly respect him for his achievements, or not respect him for his views, as you see fit, but being an alumnus of the college is not enough to gain respect in my book.
How much respect should Downing give Nick Griffin? Why should we respect someone just because they graduated from Cambridge before we did?
I would quite like a screwing. It's been quite a while
Nowhere in the JCR policy, nor in the letter, does it anywhere say anything like "Screw you Sentamu". The letter, although strongly worded, is not rude.
The letter also makes it clear that he is invited back to the college to speak on this, so again, the title is misleading.
Just journalistic licence i guess.
I approve these events.
Liberal Anglicans of the world despair of their bishops at times…
Selwyn JCR'S response is a blinkered, knee-jerk reaction to a quote taken out of context.
"Not to diminish, condemn, criticise, patronise any same-sex relationships"
You'd think he was advocating that buggery be re-made a criminal offence from teh reactions he's getting.
This is Saskia's college!
Who's 'Sakia'?
Can't wait to get married in the college chapel.
The union between a man and a woman, a man and a man and a woman and a woman are three fundamentally different things.
They should have equal standing but are definitely not the same and therefore require different words.
I think the idea is to define marriage as a union between two individuals. There's no reason to be so protective of 'marriage' as something that can only exist between a woman and a man. Why should the individual's gender and sexual preference define the union between them?
Well, if we're following your argument, then the current state of affairs isn't satisfactory either, and we'll need a names that differentiate between gay male and lesbian unions. Or was your argument simply that 'man+woman' = normal, and anything else, as something 'fundamentally different', can be lumped under abnormal and remain there, regardless of the willy to willy or vag to vag ratio?
How about officially calling all registrations of partner commitment civil partnerships except those performed by the state church (CofE). That way we can recognise that marriage being between a man and a woman is a cornerstone of the official religion (like it or not – I don't) and have equality.
Hello. Apparently we've been introduced as you know my name, but you seem to have got the wrong idea of what I'm about.
I have a feeling that you may have amnesia and have forgotten yourself. Surely EQUALity in this context means treating same sex relationships identically to opposite sex ones. In my suggestion the government does exactly that: it only does civil partnerships whatever sort of partner you have – the church does marriages. Surely this is the equal treatment everyone wants.
No – there are religious LGBT people as well, who would like religious marriages. There are churches (Quakers, etc.) which would like to hold legally recognised religious same-sex marriages, but currently do not have the option to, and are legally barred from doing so by the Civil Partnership Act 2004. There are heterosexual couples who reject the institution of marriage and its religious connotations and would like to have a civil partnership, who currently cannot. See the Equal Love campaign.
I think you have slightly misunderstood what I proposed. There is nothing to stop anyone from having a religious ceremony to sanctify a same (or different) sex partnership and calling it a marriage, it just won't be called that on state documents. Equally, since everyone not married by the church of England will have a civil partnership your second objection makes no sense.
Apart from what Selwyn Alumnus said, it's not equality to allow a certain tag to be given to ceremonies performed by one church but refuse it to all others. That's almost worse than the situation we're in now: some ceremonies performed by some churches can have the tag.
Like it or not the CofE is our established church. If you want to disestablish it in the name of religious equality then I would have no objections to doing so and then stripping the right to label their partnerships as marriage also.
It may interest you to know that the CofE is the ONLY institution that can legally religiously marry you. All other ceremonies (same sex or otherwise) are, legally speaking, civil weddings or civil partnerships.
Leaving aside everything you just said (because I can't be bothered with a lot of it), that still doesn't explain your incredibly weird understanding of the word "equality".
So… do you think that equality means something other than treating people in comparable situations identically?
To put it in primary school terms – if the government gives a straight couple an apple and a gay couple an orange, then that is not equality. If a straight couple and a gay couple are both given an orange, then that is equality, even if both might rather have an apple.
Yes but, again, you're completely missing the point, because some people are getting apples, aren't they? Admittedly this is now a religious equality rather than LGBT point, but still not equality is it?
So long as we have a state church you are regretably correct. I should have made it clearer that I think that this is unavoidable inequality unless the CofE is first disestablished which would be oddly difficult to do given the way it is tied up with the monarchy.
I would be happy for disestablishment to occur but think that it is a little harsh to make homosexuals wait any longer for a 'nearly' solution just because it will take years to get a perfect one. I think we agree in substance but you (in my opinion) underestimate the complexity of the established church issue for the speed of getting there..
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
… is fun. Just saying.
Budget chat.
Marriage is for the good, not for the gay.
I believe marriage isn't between a man and woman, but between love and love.