London, Mar 20 (ANI): The Muslim and Sikh community in the United Kingdom has slammed Prime Minister David Cameron's plan to legalise gay marriage, calling it an 'unnecessary' step, and an 'assault on religion'.
Farooq Murad, Secretary General the Muslim Council of Britain, said the government's proposals were 'strikingly weak'.
"Whilst we remain opposed to all forms of discrimination, including homophobia, redefining the meaning of marriage is in our opinion unnecessary and unhelpful. With the advent of civil partnerships, both homosexual and heterosexual couples now have equal rights in the eyes of the law," The Telegraph quoted Murad, as saying.
"Therefore, in our view the case to change the definition of marriage, as accepted throughout time and across cultures, is strikingly weak," he added.
Lord Singh, head of the Network of Sikh Organisations, said the proposed reforms represented "a sideways assault on religion".
"It is an attempt by a vocal, secular minority to attack religion. Sikhs believed in marriage as the union of a man and a woman and that changing the definition was an attack on the English language," he told the BBC.
"We have total respect for gays and lesbians and we are delighted that there is a Civil Partnership Act. We believe that this gives gays and lesbians everything they need," he added.
According to the report, senior Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops have already warned that the move will undermine social structures dating back thousands of years. (ANI)
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Comments:
Veronique
March 20, 2012 at 11:46 PM
There is no redefining of marriage. No church has ever owned the word. They may have interpreted the word for their own purposes, but words belong to a community and meanings expand, contract, extend and change in response to modernisation and speech patterns.
That is just the way it is. It actually has nothing to do with religion at all. The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages is a mandated civil service that collects, collates and archives records in the society.
If marriage registration were brought into line with births and deaths, then the registration process would be the civic precursor to the celebration or mourning services held by which ever religion or none.
It makes it much easier and obviates discrimination. The argument that the union of men and women is right and proper and has to do with the manufacture of children and the bestowing of family wealth was once part of this process but marriage itself far pre-dated any religious concept of marriage.
In this century where we have over 7 billion global population, marriage ought not be about producing children except to replace the parents. And there are enough orphans needing adopting without more being produced.
Let's just look after what we have instead of trying to make everyone like each other and discriminating against those who aren't the majority.