Better to Burn than to Marry

The Church of England's decision to vote a new booby-prize for second-order human beings has brought forth predictable squeals of outrage from those instruments of the divine love who incline more to the Saviour's punitive fundamentalism than to emollient British hypocrisy. The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches complained that the decision to legitimise mumbling magic words over same-sex couples goes against Biblical doctrine and against the mind, such as it is, of the Anglican Communion; which of course is perfectly true. The Archbishop of Canterbury, whose moral courage is such that he has promised not to bestow in person the blessings he advocated and defended, acknowledged the likely worldly suffering of Anglicans as a result of the vote, and proclaimed that there was nothing he held so dear as the safety of those he was joyfully endangering. Doubtless he referred to the safety of their souls rather than their bodies: most Anglican churches agree with Leviticus 18 xxii as unequivocally endorsed by the Saviour at Matthew 5 xviii, but the Church of England takes the more nuanced view that the teachings of Christ are secondary to its own convenience.