Wednesday 29 April 2015

Have UKIP suggested we allow Christians to oppose gay equality?

I read a pink news article that headlined ''UKIP wants to create 'conscience' law for Christians who oppose gay equality''

This is very very misleading. Now UKIP are a Libertarian party. Which is about freedom and choice. Meaning a pub could allow smokers in if they choose to.... another could say no smoking. A businessman could prefer British workers to non British workers etc etc. This is a consistent theme with UKIP.

First off there is no Christian manifesto. It was just a document given to Christian Churches on the specific things to do with Christianity UKIP propose.

Now within UKIP are some traditional elderly people..there are some strong devout Christians. They are uncomfortable about gay marriage. Now while the PC thing to do is call them bigots and hound them for their disgraceful homophobic attitudes, the reality is only 7 years ago we had Barrack Obama say this....Watch the first 8 seconds..


Now a lot has changed since then, however many Christians still feel the way Obama did in 2008. Many do believe marriage is between a man and a woman. They do not agree with gay marriage. Should that mean we outlaw gay marriage or go back to how it was before? No, of course not because that would be grossly unfair to gay people. You may not agree with gay marriage, but having the right to deny others to get married is totally not libertarian. And Christians in UKIP understand this.

However onto the actual point, should we hound Christians who believe gay marriage isn't right, or don't agree with it? No.  That's their individual choice, it's what they believe. Contrary to many people's opinions, a lot of these Christians do not hate or dislike gay people.

Now the problem comes where Christians are forced to comply with something they do not agree with. Refusing to serve or involve yourself with someone because he is gay is simply not acceptable, because that is truly unfair, and truly intolerant. 

However not wanting to be apart of a gay marriage ceremony after having worked in a field your whole life when the gay marriage law was rushed through, meaning Christians who had careers in fields in marriage now had to do things they weren't comfortable with or would be fired, it gives them protection so they wont lose their livelihood due to a law not fully ironed out.  
Stories like this http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/01/christian-worker-who-was-sacked-after-airing-views-on-gay-marriage-will-fight-dismissal-5084577/ the woman here would be given protection. Because this seems like hounding Christians. But of course within reasonable parameters. Reasonable is the key word here. You cannot get away with openly discrimination against gay people, and that is certainly not what it's about.

And what UKIP propose is to give these people leeway, so they can in the workplace say I'd rather not be involved with that or do that, and somebody else can......

Now this will effect very few people and cause a limited number of incidents. The majority of Christians probably have no real issue with gay marriage. I am a Christian I simply do not care, and I wouldn't have any objections to being involved in a gay wedding. I'm sure most Christians don't. But there are some who do, and they do not do so out of hatred but purely religious belief.  

We have two conflicting sides here. One thinks gay marriage is wrong and shouldn't be allowed, we should have civil unions, but marriage is between a man and a woman.

And the other suggests Christians should be forced to treat gay weddings like any other and not doing so is discrimination and breaks equality laws and they're bigots etc etc etc.

I see UKIP's proposal as the perfect solution. It obviously allows gay marriage and doesn't disrupt the progress made with gay rights, but it also caters for and respects the views and beliefs of devout Christians.

Suzanne Evans cleared this up on the BBC Asian network. There is no Christian manifesto. That's what the media labelled it, there was just a document which outlined UKIP's aims to help the Christian community who have felt let down by successive governments. 

I personally see Halal meat as barbaric. But we allow it under religious exemption, the same with Kosher meat. 
I personally don't like abortion and I'm glad it's in our laws that a Christian doctor can refuse to be involved with abortions if he chooses or thinks it's wrong, we cant force him to do it or fire him, he has the right with religious freedom to say I don't want to be apart of that.

And this proposal from UKIP for Christians similarly is a religious freedom issue as well as a libertarian choice. Within reasonable parameters obviously. 

There are a lot more gay people in UKIP than I imagined when I first joined the whole UKIP scene, I came across so many gay people, I was pretty surprised, and I would like to know their opinion on this. Also I would like to know Christians opinion on this, UKIP or not.

Have UKIP suggested we allow Christians to oppose gay equality?  Fiction
They have proposed a simple religious freedom tweek in the workplace which will allow Christians to be free not to be involved with a gay wedding if they so choose. 

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