Church of England warning on gay marriage

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I know that many on here are against marriage anyway in principle, but this is still a clear example of bigotry and religious institutions being against equal treatment of all couples who want to get married.

Government proposals for gay marriage would dilute an institution "vastly" important to a healthy society, the Church of England has warned.
Responding to a consultation on the issue in England and Wales, the Church said the legislation was "shallow".
Government plans to open marriage to gay couples by 2015 could undermine its status as the state church, it said.
The Home Office said religious bodies would not have to conduct gay marriages and that it was considering all views.
The plans do not allow for religious organisations in favour of change to conduct gay marriages.
Gay rights campaigners accused the Church of "scaremongering".
The Church of England said by opening marriage to gay couples, an institution defined for centuries to be exclusively between a man and a woman would have its meaning "hollowed out" and reduced to the level of a "content free", "consumerist", agreement.

(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18405318)

[Firebrand]

The church of england is desparate and is willing to say anything in order to halt its decline. The trouble is that it tries to please everyone and ends up pleasing no-one. The catholic strategy is the opposite, it tries to please no-one and ends up pleasing lots of people.
The result is that the catholic church is consistantly bigoted while its members generally just politely ignore it, and the CofE wildly veers from liberalism to conservatism pissing off its liberal supporters with stuff like this and pissing off its conservative supporters with more liberals stuff.
In other words, religion can be entertaining when you're watching it from the outside and it doesn't hold any real power. (When it starts stoning people or blowing up abortion clinics is another matter of course)