Churches cannot afford to ban gay marriages

Published on 30/09/2012 00:00

TIM Hopkins (Letters, 23 September) should know that there is more than one way for the gay rights movement to skin its anti-church cat than directly forcing churches to conduct same-sex marriages.

What is instructive is what happened in recent years to bowling clubs and golf clubs in Scotland which refused to 
admit women as members on the same terms as men. All access to public funding was cut off. If this is applied to churches after same-sex marriage is introduced then there will be no grants towards maintaining historic listed buildings, there will be no grants from local authorities towards church groups working with young people or vulnerable groups, local authorities will not be permitted to enter into contracts with churches “who discriminate” for the provision of social services (Catholic adoption agencies is a recent example of how that will work), and the charitable status of churches will be attacked and removed, leading amongst other things to increased non-domestic rates bills.

What is also clear is that any exemption to churches will apply only to the actual wedding ceremonies within the religious building itself. So if a church allows its church hall to be used for lets by community groups or as a venue for a wedding reception, then that church will not be able to refuse to let the hall for the celebrations of a gay couple. We are going to see people who try to book venues solely to get the booking refused in order to bring a legal claim, as has happened in Canada.

The tactic will be not to 
directly force churches to solemnise a gay marriage, but to make it economically unviable for them to refuse to do so. The cry will be: “Why should a body that discriminates against a section of the community get public funding?”

When all this has come to pass, I wonder if Tim Hopkins will have the grace to apologise for misleading Scots? This is not about equal rights for gay people, but is a campaign to destroy organised religion.

Ian Stuart, Dingwall