Steven Croft speaks of the need for resolving a ‘fundamental issue of justice’ and observes that ‘it is almost impossible to have a mutually respectful conversation between Church and society on the grounds of justice, if the Church denies the rights of homosexual people to enter into loving and faithful partnerships and marriage.’
To be precise, the Church does not seek to roll back anti-discrimination laws nor to abolish civil partnerships and while the waiving of the requirement that marriage partners must be of diverse sex puts the secular definition of marriage at odds with the Church’s understanding of marriage, the Church does not campaign to bring the civil definition in line with the church’s. In this sense, the Church does not in fact deny the civil rights of homosexual people to enter into loving and faithful partnerships and marriage, it merely, at present, refuses to approve of sexual intimacy in same-sex relationships or to redefine its own understanding of marriage.
For Croft there is an issue as to whether ‘the Church is fair and just in its ethics’. He notes ‘a fundamental disagreement about justice and fairness: we [the church] are seen [by society] to inhabit a different moral universe’ (20)
The booklet uses ‘justice’ consistently in a positive way, as it should. By contrast, ‘judgement’ is regularly contrasted with mercy and portrayed negatively. But throughout the Bible wise and appropriate judgement is a means of bringing about justice for the oppressed. Last Sunday’s OT reading from Jeremiah 23 condemning the shepherds that did not keep the flock safe is a case in point.
Is it really coherent to claim that justice demands the Church to welcome and affirm (sexually active) same-sex relationships but to affirm that the traditional view of marriage and human sexuality ‘remains a legitimate and honourable position’? Can a demand for justice be suspended in this way, by refusing to judge those who withhold justice?
It seems to me that a judgement is required: either approving of sexual intimacy outside the parameters of traditional Christian teaching is a matter of justice in which case no clergy should be allowed to withhold such justice, or it is not.
