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Church debates ‘duty to marry’

12 April 2013

SHUTTERSTOCK

Overhead: part of a rainbow appears above Little Orme, North Wales

Overhead: part of a rainbow appears above Little Orme, North Wales

THE debate about same-sex marriage should prompt the Church in Wales to consider whether it wants to retain its "duty to marry parishioners" - a duty that was a "vestige of Establishment", the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said on Wednesday.

Addressing the Governing Body of the Church in Wales at the start of its two-day meeting in Lampeter, Dr Morgan suggested that, if marriage were to become a devolved issue, the Welsh government was unlikely to allow the Church in Wales to "hang on" to this "special status in law", retained after disestablishment in 1920.

If the Church was to relinquish it of its own accord, all clergy could still be licensed as registrars, making rules about residency and qualified connections "a matter for the Church in Wales and not the State".

In February, Dr Morgan expressed concern that the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill would prevent the Church in Wales from opting in to perform same-sex marriages in the future (News, 1 February). He reiterated on Wednesday that there was now a "mechanism" in place in the legislation whereby the Church "could conduct same-sex marriages if, in the future, it decided to do so, without having to rescind an Act of Parliament prohibiting if from doing so".

If the Governing Body of the Church were to make such a decision, the Lord Chancellor could, by order of Parliament, make that possible. Dr Morgan had told the Government that he thought that the Church did not want "at the present time" to change its doctrine on marriage.

Dr Morgan told the Governing Body that there had been "a growth in understanding of same-sex relationships in wider society in recent years, and a more comprehensive understanding of human sexuality in general". Within the Church in Wales there was "a variety of views about the ethics of same-sex relationships".

The Bishops had asked the Doctrinal Commission to examine "the whole issue", and, once its report was complete, there would be a "general discussion" in the Governing Body about the way forward.

He referred to the observation made "mischievously" by Professor Thomas Watkin, Professor of Law at Cardiff University, that the opening words of the marriage service, in Welsh, were "Saif y ddeuddyn sydd I'w priodi o flaen yr", in which the literal translation of "ddeuddyn" is "two men".

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