The first gay "marriage" has been carried out in an Anglican church between two priests, it has been reported today. The Rev Peter Cowell and the Rev Dr David Lord exchanged vows at St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London last month. Although some clergy have carried out blessings for civil ceremonies before, this is the first time the traditional wedding marriage service has been held for a same sex couple, the Sunday Telegraph reported. .................. The news will renew the bitter debate among Anglicans over the issues of gay priests and homosexual marriage.
The Rev Peter Cowell and the Rev Dr David Lord exchanged vows at St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London last month.
Although some clergy have carried out blessings for civil ceremonies before, this is the first time the traditional wedding marriage service has been held for a same sex couple, the Sunday Telegraph reported. ..................
The news will renew the bitter debate among Anglicans over the issues of gay priests and homosexual marriage.
But in 21st-century Britain, a minority that refuses to commune with the rest of society cannot hide from politics. Gordon Brown wants to promote public expressions of 'Britishness'. New arrivals will be expected to avow their loyalty, while established Britons will wave flags and hug each other on a new public holiday. As a rule, policy only exists as a solution to a problem. In this case, the problem is a lack of what wonks and Whitehall call 'integration and social cohesion'. That deficit was brought to the government's attention by opinion polls that consistently show voters unhappy about high levels of immigration, and by the 7 July bombings, which showed how members of one community were so alienated from Britain as to be capable of treason. Since then, promoting 'integration' has become the shared aspiration of all mainstream parties. It is one of those lazy virtues that are easy to promote because no one in their right mind stands for the opposite. Who has a manifesto calling for disintegration? The Haredim pose an interesting challenge to this tidy consensus. If separateness in Muslims and immigrant communities is bad because it leads to crime and disorder, would it be fine as long as the ghetto was trouble-free? If people obey the law, why should they integrate and, if they must, with whom? Rich and poor Britons don't mix socially. They don't even drink in the same pubs.
As a rule, policy only exists as a solution to a problem. In this case, the problem is a lack of what wonks and Whitehall call 'integration and social cohesion'. That deficit was brought to the government's attention by opinion polls that consistently show voters unhappy about high levels of immigration, and by the 7 July bombings, which showed how members of one community were so alienated from Britain as to be capable of treason. Since then, promoting 'integration' has become the shared aspiration of all mainstream parties. It is one of those lazy virtues that are easy to promote because no one in their right mind stands for the opposite. Who has a manifesto calling for disintegration?
The Haredim pose an interesting challenge to this tidy consensus. If separateness in Muslims and immigrant communities is bad because it leads to crime and disorder, would it be fine as long as the ghetto was trouble-free? If people obey the law, why should they integrate and, if they must, with whom? Rich and poor Britons don't mix socially. They don't even drink in the same pubs.
George Bush flies into London today with a warning for Gordon Brown not to announce a timetable for a British pull-out from Iraq, and expressing deep scepticism about the Prime Minister's high-profile strategy for bringing down world oil prices. Asked what he thinks his legacy might be, he says he is happy to await the verdict of history. But he cannot resist also offering his own, suggesting 'the liberation of 50 million people from the clutches of barbaric regimes is noteworthy, at a minimum' Asked in the Rome interview about popular opposition in Britain to the war and his presidency, he replied: 'Do I care? Only to the extent that it affects people's view of the citizens I represent. Do I care about my personal standing? Not really.' He remained, he said, convinced that Iraq, and the world, was a better place without Saddam Hussein. And he said that while 'Presidents don't get to do re-dos' on issues such as Saddam's lack of weapons of mass destruction, there was one lesson from the run-up to the Iraq war that he felt was hugely relevant to the standoff in Iran. 'We didn't realise, nor did anyone else,' Bush said, 'that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction. It may have been, however, that in his mind all this was just a bluff ... that the world wasn't serious.' About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday June 15 2008 on p30 of the World news section. It was last updated at 01:09 on June 15 2008.
Asked what he thinks his legacy might be, he says he is happy to await the verdict of history. But he cannot resist also offering his own, suggesting 'the liberation of 50 million people from the clutches of barbaric regimes is noteworthy, at a minimum'
Asked in the Rome interview about popular opposition in Britain to the war and his presidency, he replied: 'Do I care? Only to the extent that it affects people's view of the citizens I represent. Do I care about my personal standing? Not really.'
He remained, he said, convinced that Iraq, and the world, was a better place without Saddam Hussein. And he said that while 'Presidents don't get to do re-dos' on issues such as Saddam's lack of weapons of mass destruction, there was one lesson from the run-up to the Iraq war that he felt was hugely relevant to the standoff in Iran.
'We didn't realise, nor did anyone else,' Bush said, 'that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction. It may have been, however, that in his mind all this was just a bluff ... that the world wasn't serious.'
About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday June 15 2008 on p30 of the World news section. It was last updated at 01:09 on June 15 2008.
It's 10 times as much in Paris and 120 times in New York. You can't be me, I'm taken
