Cardinal O'Brien defends gay marriage comments

Cardinal Keith O’Brien has defended comments he made over the weekend about gay marriage.

The Cardinal, who is head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, wrote an article for the Sunday Telegraph which was highly critical – and openly hostile – of coalition plans to introduce same-sex civil marriages in the UK. O’Brien had previously described such plans as a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right” in relation to Scottish proposals on same-sex marriage.

In O’Brien’s article for the Sunday Telegraph the Cardinal likened the legalising of gay marriage to legalising slavery and said allowing gay couples the right to marry would “shame” the United Kingdom in the “eyes of the world”. The article drew wide-spread criticism with O’Brien appearing on the Today programme, on BBC Radio Four, to defend himself.

The Catholic cardinal said it was ‘time to call a halt now to what you may call progress in society’ and said that ‘society would be degenerating even further than it has already degenerated into immorality‘ if gay couples were given the right to marry. Such comments are only likely to draw further criticism.

The coalition government will hold a public consultation, later this month, on introducing civil gay marriages in the UK. The SNP administration in Scotland has already held a separate consultation on the issue and has stated it is “inclined” to introduce gay marriage.

While the Church of England and the Catholic Church are opposed to such plans other religious groups and organisations are more welcoming of proposals. In Scotland a coalition of faith groups have come together to give their backing to gay marriage. The coalition includes Quarkers, Unitarians, Liberal Jews, the Metropolitan Church and the Pagan Federation.

Meanwhile opinion polls continue to show the majority of the British public support gay marriage despite scary-mongering from opponents. It would seem the public are not fooled by declarations that gay marriage will bring about the end of the world. {jcomments off}