Unlock our churches’ doors for the use of all

Published on 14/10/2012 00:00

IAN Stuart (Letters, 30 September) describes a rather paranoid fear that the campaign for marriage equality is concerned only “to destroy organised religion” due to the church being obliged to follow laws which apply to everyone.

That Catholic adoption agencies chose to close rather than to end discrimination did cut off their noses to spite their faces, but again it was their choice. The state only asked them to obey the law and was not out to get them in the way Mr Stuart suggests.

As a secularist, I would fight for the right of religious people to hold their beliefs and for the manifestation of those beliefs in their private lives, but those rights do not extend to the centuries-old religious assumption of ownership of our public institutions such as our House of Lords, councils, legal system and life partnerships.

Mr Stuart brings up an important point about funding the maintenance of our historic listed church buildings, and he rightly identifies a majority voice which will say “Why should a body that discriminates against a section of the community get public funding?”

Why indeed? Religious people are a sizeable minority interest group and should, of course, continue to use churches, but they need not be their sole custodians. These now civically sponsored buildings must also be available to other taxpayers, so I suggest that kids’ rock bands, secularist meeting groups and LGBT drop-in services should have keys from Monday to Saturday.

Neil Barber, Edinburgh

IAN Stuart writes that the campaign for same-sex marriage is “not about equal rights for gay people, but is a campaign to destroy organised 
religion”. But many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Scotland are members of organised religions.

Several organised religious bodies, such as the Quakers, Unitarians, Liberal Jews and others, want to conduct same-sex marriages. And 100,000s of members of the large organised religions in Scotland support same-sex marriage: the 2010 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey found that a majority of both Catholics and Presbyterians support it.

It is quite wrong therefore to suggest that support for same-sex marriage means opposition to organised religion.

Tim Hopkins,

Equality Network