A Voice of Sanity

After Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s very unpleasant outburst on the possibility of the UK’s legalising same-sex marriage, it comes as something of a relief to be able to point to a voice of sanity on the subject. It belongs to the philosopher Norman Geras.

Actually, he has two blog posts on the subject. The first is a reaction to the Cardinal directly, in which Geras notes how feeble the arguments put forward by the Cardinal are.

The second is his reaction to the text of a letter co-signed by the Archbishop of Westminster and the Archbishop of Southwark on the subject of same-sex marriage that will be read out 2,500 Catholic churches in the UK next Sunday. As Geras says:

I make no attempt to judge these remarks in the light of Catholic teaching, since I’m not competent to do so. But if we measure them against the more general understanding of marriage in our society, the exercise suggests that what the two Archbishops define as the true meaning of marriage is an insult to many people’s marriages.

By the way, I found it instructive to read the comments on the article in the Catholic Herald that gave the text of the letter. It was mostly a singularly unpleasant experience. Clearly there are plenty of Catholics who align themselves with Cardinal O’Brien. Bigotry is alive and well.