Christianity, bullying, and gay straight alliances.

Because they see themselves as the moral authority in society. When secular society ignores them they become irrelevant. It one more little bit of the power they have left being taken away from them. It's like telling an American they no longer have the right to own a gun. They see it as their birth right.

 

That could be one reason, but there is another reason or more.

 

Well would you care to elaborate? I'm really not that good at charades or reading people's minds from thousands of miles away.

 

In the case of the Anglican church it's simply the use of the word marriage. They have no objection to an expansion of civil unions or elevating them to the same legal status as marriage, indeed the bishops in the house of lords voted for civil partnerships in the first place.
Marriage is problematic because they have a teaching on what marriage is which they need to protect. However, they are also an institution that performs marriages, and a key element of English life is the recognition of religious marriages. If same sex marriages become the law, it becomes difficult for churches to legally not have them. This would probably then lead to separation of legal and religious marriage, creating a situation as in France where religious people have to get married twice. This would have several knock-on effects for the church.

 

Thanks. I as getting close to saying it was a matter of money and not principle.

Although the "church" would have its followers believe it is all about the "principle"

 

While there are financial implications to this, it might also create new opportunities. Financially one of the big problems for the Church of England is it's heritage churches. Without weddings to pay for them, these may well have to be abandoned, which while from a heritage point of view would be a shame, moves to cheaper, more modern premises would help to change the image of the Anglican church.

 

However, the church has a "double-edge sword".

On one edge, they can create opportunities.

On the other edge-hand, that had instilled such a mind set to its other followers, that they could "lose" these followers if they swayed to the other edge-direction

 

Nonsense. The government has already stated very clearly that churches would not be expected to carry out same-sex marriages.

 

Why would it be a matter of money? I mean I can understand that from the couples point of view where they might get some sort of tax relief. But not from the church's point of view?

 

Because the church does not desire to go against its initial principle for fear of losing existing followers

The church is looking to get revenue from the couples, but cannot lose said revenue from the other followers

Simply, the more followers a "church" has, the more revenue

 

This is a short sighted view, and also a sweeping generalisation. Elements within the government are highly critical of that proposal, and once the law is changed, even with an exemption clause, how long until the exemption is legally challenged?
Indeed, from the Telegraph (not ideal as it's from a particularly right wing column, but it's late and I needed to find something)

 

Because once they have a congregation formed, which were initially opposed, they cannot reverse this as they would loose the following-hence loose a financial tie-in

 

The government shouldn't be dictating who you can get married to. However since we have people who obviously have a problem with what other people do with their lives, we need some laws to bring the dinosaurs into the 21st century. To me this issue really isn't that different from when whites and non-whites were not allowed to get married. Even today many marriages are still same race. If gays were allowed to get married there would hardly be a noticeable change and in 40 years from now, much like the issue of inter-racial marriage, no one would give a crap about it, including most bigots.

 

But it just isn't the government, it is also the religious zealots

 

Any Church that stands to gain financially, directly or indirectly from their followers. That is what I think he was trying to say. If they lost followers they would have less money coming in from donations, real estate, and probably on tax deductions/exemptions and what ever business ventures they are involved in.

For example, the Catholic church was (allegedly) involved in a money scandal about 30 years ago. They are basically a money making business(in fact they even have a bank), so to think that financial decisions don't influence their decisions is naive. No offence intended.

 

They are a world wide, multi-million dollar organization that has their own bank. That is enough to tell me how much money influences them. Not to mention all of the scandals they've been involved in and their murky history.