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Madness, a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right, and a redefinition of reality is how Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland described proposals to redefine marriage so as to allow same-sex unions.
In a hard-hitting column in the Sunday Telegraph, O’Brien went on to ask: ‘If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage?’
In what seems to be a collision course with British Prime Minister David Cameron, O’Brien’s criticims are the strongest yet from any church figure of the plans to soon to be unveiled by Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone.
Adding his voice to those of leading figures in the Coalition for Marriage, a group of bishops, politicians and lawyers, including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to opposed to the changes, O’Brien labelled the changes as being “at the behest of a small minority of activists”.
The British government led by Cameron, plans to make legislation changing the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples one of the central achievements of his time in office.
Mr Cameron told last year’s Tory conference in Manchester: “I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative.” Last week his spokesman said he was “passionate” about the issue.
Margot James, the first openly lesbian Conservative MP, criticised the ‘apocalyptic language’ used by O’Brien.
‘I think that the government is not trying to force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages at all. It is a purely civil matter,’ she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
In an article for The Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O’Brien wrote: ‘Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child.’
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