(I don’t actually know the answer to that last one, but to me it bears thinking about. Right action, wrong motivation, etc).”

Legitimate concerns. Ultimately we can’t know, but my guess is that he would still be supporting it. I suspect that, while some right-wing politicians (generally the religious ones) pretend to be more liberal about homosexuality than they truly are, the trend among left-wing politicians moves in the opposite direction. For example, I find it hard to believe that Bros Milliband are as anti-gay as they paint themselves to be (which isn’t much); I think they just want to cover all of their bases.

As such, and I know the above contains lots of assumptions, my guess is that Balls is a supporter of gay rights generally but feels he’ll get further with those on the fence by using a personal human interest story rather than engaging in a rational debate about the whys and wherefores. I’d also point out that he, perhaps more than anyone else, became something of a symbol rather than a person in the media during the run-up to the election, and that he’s therefore probably trying to re-establish the image of himself as a normal bloke that you’d like to have a pint with and so on.

Surely churches which now welcome homosexuals are pick and mixing from their holy books in the same way that they do not advocate stoning to death of adulterers, children who dis their parents, and those who insist on working on a Sunday.

Because some churches and some religions have antediluvian attitudes doesn’t mean that they all have, or that they all should have, and that anyone who professes to be religious should have these attitudes or else be an atheist.

Of course, they should be atheist because that’s just common sense. But if they believe then they should have just as much liberty to pick the bits out they want as anyone else. So say I.

(I don’t actually know the answer to that last one, but to me it bears thinking about. Right action, wrong motivation, etc).

17 – reasonably well-put, and TBH I’m not sure if I disagree with you at the appointed place or not. Once you’ve removed the “public service” / civil contract aspect from the religious ceremony, I think that what remains can reasonably be reduced to the “gays in your B&B” question. But of course, we have greater respect for intolerance in religious organisations in this country, for some weird reason, so I can’t imagine that such a reduction would be accepted by many.

Look, pick ‘n’ mix Christianity annoys me too, but only when someone is claiming that something is definitely true because it’s in the Bible. If someone wants to call themselves a Christian and pick the best bits of the book to guide their morality while not pushing it down everyone else’s throat, I really don’t see what the problem is.

Good point well made.

Hold up. You’re putting words into the man’s mouth in a fairly unreasonable way. He didn’t say “make me the Labour leader because my uncle was gay”, he was asked what motivated him and responded. Why on earth are you attacking that?

And yes, I can see why you’re annoyed that he argued by anecdote. The correct response would probably be “because gays are no different from straights, you stupid fucking bigots, so let’s stop pandering to your bullshit and act like decent human beings for a change.” If that’s how you think, I am completely with you. But he’s a politician, and to make change happen he first has to gain authority, Right now, I think humanizing gays is a good tactic. I wish to God it didn’t have to be.

In my view there is only one New Testament passage which, when translated properly, appears to suggest homosexuality is wrong. That passage (Romans 1) has a specific context (it was written from Corinth where temple prostitution & prostitution involving young boys was common) and some scholars believe Paul was referring specifically to abusive same-sex intercourse. Others think he was referring to all same-sex intercourse.

Let’s assume the most intolerant explanation for these purposes. For you, that doesn’t present any dilemma. You don’t care what’s written in the bible. But for a gay Christian – or even just a Christian who believes in & cares about equality, it does present a problem and one that isn’t easily overcome. So I have sympathy with Christians who are gay & I respect them enough to support them whatever they decide – whether they choose to be completely open about being in a same-sex relationship or abstain from sex completely (or choose another course of action). Although I believe scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, we all (including translators) bring our own prejudices, experiences etc in reading it. Dissent is good, disagreement about meaning is good. As a Baptist I believe in the priesthood of all believers, so I should respect another Christian’s reading of scripture – they have the Holy Spirit in them just as I do. At the same time as respecting different gay Christians’ different interpretations and different choices I argue for political equality including freedom for gay couples to be able to get married, to be able to get married in church, to adopt children etc.

Of course, that was probably all wasted on you as you don’t seem interested in other people & what they believe.

As for the fundamental question here, my basic position is that of Nick’s – disestablish the Church of England, abolish marriages in law, let people hold ceremonies in churches with the consent of the church & call them whatever they want. However, (and I suspect Nick might disagree here), I’d also like to force churches not to discriminate in who they offer marriage ceremonies to. (So if they offered services to people who were not members of their church they would have to offer them to heterosexual & homosexual couples alike.) And as disestablishment etc is probably not on the agenda, in the short-term I’m all in favour of gay marriage.

Fair enough but what do you imagine happens when religions “all go away ? History suggests you do not get a spontanous outbreak of peace and understanding but that into the “spiritual” (in it’s very loose sense) vacuum something worse might well fit. Religion is one “tribe”, but there are many others.

I still think abolish marriages, give everyone civil partnerships instead, is the way forward, though.

Also – why does having a gay uncle who died and made you feel bad make you more worthy as leader of the labour party? Surely, if you can’t work out that equality (real equality, not ‘equal but different’ equality) is good from first principles, that’s something of a fail?

Yeah. Atheists telling religious people what particular religious ideas they should adopt is truly weird. You’re not being intolerant and offensive enough, Rowan! Shame on you! Pander to my prejudices, dammit!

Assuming that by “applaud” you mean “insult”, “undermine”, and “deny” (even the supposed “liberal wings”, are becoming more tolerant towards homosexuals for any other reason than necessity is laughable).

Here is a list of gay-friendly Christian denominations. Here are some gay friendly religious Jews, and here some gay Muslims. These people are fighting a crucial battle, and many of them are damn brave for doing so, and they deserve our support.

Yet for some reason you prefer to insult them (“Religious homosexual is a wierd oxymoron. Hopefully anybody still suffering such dillusions will get better soon”), and claim they’re only making their stand out of “necessity”, whatever that means, all the while parroting the biblical-literalism of their enemies.

Thanks for such an enlightened contribution.”

Presumably then you will tell me that this is untrue – that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality??

It’s all very well saying “well, we don’t actually believe that anymore”, yet where do you suppose they are finding justification for the execution and persecution of homosexuals right across Africa at the current time?

“Answer: because atheists of all people should understand that religion is made up by people. So if the people of a certain religion decide that it’s ok to be gay, then according to that religion it’s ok to be gay. And that is that.”

So which monotheism says it’s ok to be gay then?

The idea that the monotheisms, even the supposed “liberal wings”, are becoming more tolerant towards homosexuals for any other reason than necessity is laughable – it’s a credibility issue. Most of the people who still have a problem with homosexuality do so precisely because they believe in a dictator in the sky who’s holy books are deeply homophobic.

Of course I would applaud any “tolerance” shown by the church. But the fact is that the church has absolutely no moral authority whatsoever on these issues, and we don’t need the church to tell us that homosexuality is ok thankyou very much.

Religion will never treat homosexuals as equals even if they put up a verbal pretence to do so. The idea of religion is that of unalterable morality – while their holy books contain condemnations of homosexuality the issue will keep reappearing.

Then isn’t it up to Balls to supply that information if he really wants to use his uncle’s story to illustrate his point? If his uncle was a Quaker or a Methodist Balls could have mentioned this up front and then said the only barrier to his uncle’s marriage would have been the State and not his faith.

However the State has no dominion over the *beliefs* of the religious. Unless Balls is suggesting the State should now decide whether religious groups accept gay marriages his anecdote is meaningless.

Just because the state might someday – rightly – accept gay marriage doesn’t mean the church will. Changing the law wouldn’t have made *any* difference to Ball’s uncle being accepted.

From the information given, we don’t know what denomination he was or whether his church accepted him or not. If he was Quaker or Methodist then he would have been accepted, but they still would not have been able to legally marry him even if they wanted to.

‘Answer: because atheists of all people should understand that religion is made up by people. So if the people of a certain religion decide that it’s ok to be gay, then according to that religion it’s ok to be gay.’

And conversely if they decide it’s ‘okay’ to be homophobic – which, in practice, they do – it’s ‘okay’ to be homophobic.

Yes, religion is made up of people. Unfortunately most of those people are homophobic.