I am a Nigerian. My mother tongue or native tongue is Igbo language (South-Eastern Nigeria). English is my second language. In all sincerity, I want my English brothers who comment on TA to explain to me in clear terms and in a Lay man's language what Civil Partnerships mean's? I have been trying to translate it in my local language to my aged Father who is an Anglican Priest. But i cant just escape telling him that it is all about 'nwoke n' nwoke ibiko'- transliterated to mean a union between as man and man.

Since the revered Primus of Scotland acknowledges that there is no authorised liturgy for CPA...WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THIS DOCTRINE, PRACTICE AND ORIENTATION ORIGINATE FROM?

It is about a union between same sex couples. Have a look at the Government leaflet on the topic - which explicitly sets that out.

It is only the Church which can't bear to face up to this reality.

In all sincerity, Peter O: the orientation is a *gift from God*! :-)

["Doctrines" and "practices" being human inventions, to get us by---or just make life more difficult? (depends which day you ask me)---until the Second Coming...]

But could you please remember that (I can't say it in Igbo, unfortunately), that CPA is *just as much* for a *union between woman and woman*, too? Thanks!

May I suggest Peter that the first place to start might be the Bible?

Here you will find a wealth of stories about people of the same sex whose love for each other is even now wonderful to behold. The bonds of devotion between people of the same sex that can overcome different faiths, ethnic and social identities and be a real testament to the power of God's love should not be unfamiliar to your aged father.

Then, perhaps you might tell of the many Saints throughout history (Including my own country’s patron, Saint David) whose “important other” in their spiritual development was a person of the same sex whom they loved exceedingly, even “beyond that of a Man for a women” it was said at the time.

You might tell of the ordinary people of the same sex whose bodies lie in parish churches throughout our country whose love was so great for each other that they were buried together in full view of the congregation as an example of Christian love; he might know people like that himself.

If you trust the evidence, and most now seem to do so, then you might tell of the Church ceremonies from antiquity that bound two of the same sex together because their love for each other was so great that through this love the reality and power of God’s love was made clearer.

I am sure that he already has the knowledge and wisdom to put these things together and that he will understand the depth and beauty love has to offer all people, in many different situations and see the sense of what is done.

As far as I understand it, Peter, and I'm willing to be corrected by those who have studied it more closely, a civil partnership is about extending rights which at present only married (and therefore heterosexual) couples enjoy. These are rights affecting areas such as inheritance and next of kin privileges throughout medical care. It is basically a way of giving practical, legal support to relationships other than heterosexual marriage.

As for where it comes from, the civil partnership act is a secular law responding to what many people saw around them: long-lasting, loving relationships which because they happened to be between people of the same sex got no legal recognition or support. I knew a man who had cared for his partner throughout a long and grim illness, demonstrating love and fidelity that taught me a great deal about what my heterosexual marriage should look like. To my mind - and that of Parliament - that man and those like him are entitled to be treated as next of kin and partner. Civil partnerships give that recognition.

So, 'where it comes from' is from facing reality in this country: that we have people in same-sex relationships; that they can be permanent, faithful and enrich the lives of the partners; and that our law needed to reflect that.

I grant you that there is a dispute over whether faithful Christians can be practising homosexuals (although as our Bishops have pointed out, to assume that people in civil partnerships are necessarily having sex is rather presumptuous). The happy truth, however, is that we don't write our national laws for what faithful Christians can or cannnot do - our largely secular society writes them for itself.
It has written this one because it sees the good in loving homosexual relationships, and wants to support them. If Christians want to oppose this move, they need to show that these relationships are in themselves bad. And to do that, they need to do more than quote Scripture: they need to show us the noxious consequences for society of supporting loving, faithful, homosexual couples.

And for what its worth, I think that's a pretty difficult argument to make...

Starting from the Bible.. Gen. 2.18 ... not good for the MAN to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him." So...22...the Lord God made a WOMAN....or.. Am I getting something wrong?

Well, companionship does not necessarily mean sex... until ... another Nigerian term is 'siddon look' usually spoken when one is fed up with giving unheeded warnings.

I suspect the lack of comments on recent postings says that. God have mercy.

Geez louise, Tunde: you and your *suspicions* (like your previous charge on the ABC's interview thread: as if every computer/internet kablooey is a plot to silence God's Elect?). Paranoia is not attractive in a minister of God...

"Am I getting something wrong?"

Yes---if you're taking a Hebrew myth which just means "Our God Made Everything", and using it to justify *your own prejudices* as to why an "Adam whom God made to love Steve" can't get marri---um, "civilly-partnered"!

Tunde, if the point you would go on to develop from Genesis 2 is that the Bible's teaching on sexuality is that God made man and woman in complementarity for companionship and procreation, then you're on solid ground. Insofar as the Bible thinks positively about sexuality, it thinks about heterosexuality. So far, so agreed.

Where we differ, I suspect, is on whether that closes the question. It seems to me that simply as a matter of fact, some people experience in same sex relationships love, joy, and companionship which enriches their lives and indeed the lives of people around them. Are we to refuse to acknowledge and support that reality simply because it falls outside the experience of the biblical writers?

I suspect (forgive me, J.C!) that you might respond by saying that the Bible isn't silent on such matters - rather, it directly condemns same-sex activity. That still wouldn't convince me, though, because I'd need to understand why said condemnation should be taken seriously. If it could be shown that same-sex relationships were intrinsically unhealthy, abusive, socially damaging then the condemnation would make sense. If it can't, then we're at the level of condemning simply because the Bible says so. Which is not a good place to be, because eating shellfish and a lot of other harmless activities fall under the same prohibitions, as I'm sure you're aware.

That's why I can't condemn all homosexual relationships, and why I support the Civil Partnership Act. On the face of it, these relationships seem be good and do much good, and no-one has been able to demonstrate that really they do harm. The biblical condemnations don't seem to be reasonable condemnations.

Like you Tunde, I think that God has given us a wonderful gift in heterosexual love. I just don't understand why having a high valuation of heterosexuality means we have to have a low one of homosexuality.

I know this debate has gone on and on, and most of us don't do a good job of listening. But lets not give up on each other just yet.

Let me remind you all, that this idea of a "complementarity" of the sexes (there are more than 2 genders, you know) is totally unknown here in Sweden.

The idea is said to have originated in Rome, which does not explain its recent appearance in Political Calvinism in the USA.

Goran, I know this is probably old hat to many people, but not to me: how are there more than two genders?

I'm intrigued by the suggestion that 'complementarity' emerged first in Rome. I grant you that the word isn't used in Scripture, but doesn't it pretty well express what Scripture certainly does teach: ie. that male and female are somehow made for each other, bring each other to completion?

Peter Waddell,

So am I, but this is always said when the thing is discussed. But it i s strange.

And no, I cannot see that Scrupture "teaches" that. Plato does, though.

So I would regard this "complementarity" (unknown her, I remind you) as an over-interpretation - and I'm definately a minimalist.

Quite novel, at that, to my knowledge.

And yes, there are at least 2 corporal in-betweens: hermaphrodites and pseudo-hermaphrodites.

siddon look!

Pray all you folks will still be Christians in 10 years time if Jesus Christ has not returned. And please let no one tell me that is another myth!

Gen. 2:18 acknowledges that "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner". While unquestionably in this context, the partner is a female, both the affirmation of our basic need for and the promise of companionship does not necessarily exclude Gay and Lesbian people. Creation is not presented as a finished product and humanity is intimately involved in the ongoing process of creation. 'The plan' never envisaged single or celibate people or childless couples, yet we would not describe these people as 'disordered'.
John Stevenson - Anglican Diocese of Brisbane

Goran
From the way you speak, anyone would think that a baby was quite equally likely to be born hermaphrodite as male or female. In fact, 'hermaphrodite' is only defined in terms of male and female in the first place.
Complementarity is obvious to anyone,and has been since the start of civilisation. Anyone who knows that it takes one of each gender to produce a baby (a process that was discovered a very long time ago) also knows, by definition, that they are complementary.

Christopher Shell,
1. There are also many transsexual, and in other ways intersexed people,

2. "Obvious"! Now you're being silly - show me the first use of the word "complementarity" in this sense!

(clue: it is not "the start of civilisation" it's anti-modern social politics)

Also, there are many more ways of being "complementary" not to speak of "un-complementary", than the biological ;=)

So it's not all that "obvious".

Dear Göran,

The ways people have thought about things have changed, but that the things they are thinking about haven't! A man and a woman are complementary, they form a couple, a basic building block of the family and the human race.

It really is a poor argument to suggest that occasional physical transgender babies demolishes the idea that men and women were "made" as complementary halves of a couple. Nor that the idea is unknown in Sweden (and I think that you are overclaiming, given reaction of many swedish priests to the recent homosexual legislation in the church!)

Dear John (Brisbane) - what makes you think that "the plan" didn't include single people ? It is one thing to not be part of a couple, it is another thing to form a sexual partnership outside the designed order!

This has drifted further and further from the specifics of the Civil Partnership conversation, but it is interesting.

One thing that might help is to see the questions of (1)whether male-female complementarity is a divinely ordained norm and (2) whether some homosexual relationships might be worth celebrating, as quite different questions.

What if we see heterosexuality as the norm - in the quite straightforward sense that most people are heterosexual and that until very recently this has been necessary for the survival of the race? But saying that something is the God-given norm doesn't mean that we couldn't also see God as active outside it. Seeing God as the author of both kinds of love doesn't involve Him in a contradiction unless we see homosexual relationships as automatically undermining heterosexual ones - as bishops and popes frequently teach, but without (to my mind) justifying the claim. Perhaps the diversity of sexual orientation is positively intended by God - in part perhaps to suggest to us that sexual orientation, whilst certainly important, isn't THAT important? Or to test how we can deal with people who differ from us, whether we can celebrate people for who they are or need to mould them into our image?

All this nonsense about the 'designed order' - the constant presence of people who are gay or lesbian by orientation means that this uniform idea of a 'creation' really ought to be put to bed along with the rest of conservative theological superstition.

Dear Peter and Mike, Heterosexuality and homosexuality are not the only alternatives. Nor are they mutually exclusive, many people experience both heterosexual and homosexual attractions.

There are many other sexualities and many different sexual desires, and always have been. The question is not how we deal with people who differ from us, which must always be with love - even when we disapprove with the other persons behaviour, or disagree with their theology. The question is which desires and sexualities are righteous and which are sinful.

Christians are, after all, not just humanists!

Dear Dave,

Exactly - but what makes something sinful?

It seems to me there are two ways of answering that question. The first is to say that what is sinful is what involves the dimunition of one human being by another, everything which tends towards the destruction of the mutuality and right relationship God intends for his creatures ('shalom'). One is hard pressed, I think, to say that homosexual relations automatically imply this.

The other is to say that regardless of the human reality of these relationships, which seem good and life enriching, the Bible condemns all same-sex relationships. I find this difficult not only because the biblical teaching could be read in other ways (ie. does it really condemn 'all' same-sex activity, or is it merely silent on faithful, monagamous, mutually loving gay relationships because its writers couldn't conceive of such a thing), but also because to state 'the Bible says' without reference to wider reason lands one in lots of trouble. The Bible condemns Joshua for not carrying out mass slaughter thoroughly enough! Thus I return to my earlier point - unless we can show these biblical condemnations to be reasonable, we can't live by them.

So Dave, if you think homosexuality is sinful (which I am reading perhaps unfairly into your post), my question is: why? And its accompanying condition is that answering 'because the Bible says so' isn't a sufficient answer.