Wed as I say not as I did

The Coalition for Marriage website has a petition where people can sign up to the following

I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.

A number of MPs are signatories. Others have express their views on the subject to newspapers or constituents. The Coalition for Equal Marriage are compiling a list detailing way MPs are likely to vote.

I make it 49 MPs who have said they will vote against an equal marriage bill. How many of them do you think would have their own relationship categorised under the definition above? All of them? 90 percent? Lets count and see who wins the race to be the biggest hypocrite.

I will start with those who didn't even get out of the blocks and have yet to embrace this whole marriage thing.

John Stevenson,
Paul Murphy
Philip Lee
Richard Fuller
Ann Widdecombe
Sammy Wilson
Robert Alexander Stewart and
Paul Maynard

Now it starts to get interesting. Bronze medals go to those who tripped up over either the 'for life' or the 'exclusion of all other' hurdles.

Robert Syms - Divorced
Simon Burns - Divorced
John Whittingdale - Marriage Dissolved
Stephen Pound - has a child from a previous relationship and
John Glen - married a woman with children from a previous relationship.

Silver medals go those who stumbled at the 'one man and one woman part', who so embraced the idea of marriage they did it twice or three times.

Sir Roger Gale, 3 wives
Richard Drax, 3 wives
Tony Baldry, 2 wives
Ann Main, 2 husbands and
Craig Whitaker, 2 wives

However we have a clear winner. The gold medal goes to

Nadine Dorries

Who not only got divorced but then went on to have an affair with a married man. Congratulations Nadine.

So to answer my earlier question less than 62% can be advanced as role models for the alleged marriage definition.


P.S. In awarding medals above I am not criticising the failure or otherwise of the relationships concerned. The end of marriages or relationships can be a painful and traumatic event, but it happens. Sometimes one party may be to blame, other times both, but it can also be neither.

My criticism is in the attempt by the Coalition for Marriage and the signatories to try to promote a false definition of marriage. I have said before 'Marriage is not defined a life-long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman. It is not life long. Married people can get divorced and if they choose may marry again. It is not exclusive either. People who have affairs are still considered married.'

The MPs highlighted above are promoting a false definition of marriage in order to exclude certain people despite personally failing to live within their own definition.


PPS. The information above was taken from the internet mainly Wikipedia. I am happy to amend any errors.

The voluntary union for life of one man and one woman

A new group, the Coalition for Marriage, has recently stared a petition asking people to support the "legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others".

It is claimed to have the support, amongst others, of lawyers. I would suggest that anyone thinking lawyers favour an unambiguous and incontrovertible legal definition does not have the slightest idea how the legal profession makes its money.

The above definition can not be found in UK statute. The marriage act of 1949, rather than banning marriage between those of opposite sex, actually prevents marriage between certain men and women. Specifically it makes the Marriage between Abraham and his sister which was blessed by God in Genesis 17:16 illegal in the UK.  It was not until 1971 and the Nullity of Marriage act that same sex marriages were outlawed.

The spotlighted signatories of the petition are predominately Christian leaders. Ironically the list is headed by Lord Carey of Clifton, former Archbishop of Canterbury. One wonders, when signing a petition calling for the union of one man with one woman for life, whether he contemplated the circumstances which caused his Church to separate from Rome. Or indeed whether he considered the traditional lessons about marriage found in the bible. 

God certainly was not a fan of this one man & one woman malarkey. From Lenach in Genisis 4, to Esau, Jacob, David  and Soloman the O.T. has no shortage of polygamy. God even gave rules in Exodus 21: 10 on how to take another wife. Indeed he went further rewarding those marrying again

Deuteronomy 24:5 When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.

Paul, the prime mouthpiece for Jesus, on the other hand was clearly giving an anti-marriage message. 

1 Corinthians 7:27 Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. 

1 Corinthians 7:7-9 For I would that all men were even as I myself    .... I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. 

Matthew 19:10-12 reports Jesus' downer on marriage when he said you are better off castrating yourself than getting married. Jesus' ambivalence further illustrated in  Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25 and Luke 20:35 which all report him saying that marriages are not recognised in heaven.  

So it appears that the 'one man one woman thing' is far from the biblical ideal, what about 'for life'? If marriage was for life why would Jesus encourage the disciples to abandon their wives as pointed out by Mark 10:29-20?

There is no man that hath left .. (his) wife for my sake, and the gospel's. But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

And why make divorce is so easy? Back to Deuteronomy and 24:1

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house

We have yet to address the part of the definition concerning the 'voluntary' nature of the union.  Deuteronomy 21 contains a charming moral teaching where wives can be taken without consent.

21:10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

21:11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;

21:12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

21:13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.

21:14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will

Incidentally note in the above there are no issues with abandoning a wife who is not satisfactory. None of that 'for life' rubbish here.

That leaves us with "to the exclusion of all others". Can I just suggest that you search the bible for one of the many references to 'concubine' and draw your own conclusions.

What is clear is that this 'voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others' meme has no legitimate or consistent basis for support in the bible. Wherever it came from it is is not reflected by the traditional Christian Values found in the holy book.