Also according to the Bible, you don’t need the church or the state to approve of a union “ordained by God”.
Until the Hardwicke Marriage Act, “common law” reflected that. The Quakers, of whom I’m a descendant, weren’t happy about it.
I mention this because today’s Quakers are broadly in agreement with the archbishop. Unless one can definitely prove that a union between two people WASN’T ordained by God, cribbing selective passages from the Bible in relation to fornication or sodomy misses the point completely.
Because fornication is only fornication if it involves sex outside of a marriage ORDAINED BY GOD.
If God himself ordained a monogamous union between two men or two women, churches and states have no business whatsoever putting that relationship asunder.
That’s their argument. As Father Jack Hackett wisely said, “that’ll be an ecumenical matter.”
Fwiw i know a gay couple who recently celebrated forty years in a committed monogamous relationship. Sure I think that ain’t marriage but i don’t really see what Satan gets out of two people doing no harm to anybody else, being in a committed faithful relationship. Whether they have sex with each other or not is a matter of sin, not a demonstration of wickedness.
I find it somewhat ironic that there are people in this world who pontificate about the evil of homosexuality inside committed relationships, despite themselves having the morals of an alley cat.
Like folks with a lifelong record of wickedness, adultery, child abandonment and unfaithfulness AS WELL AS using prostitutes and encouraging anal rape as a hazing exercise. Example: Vladimir Putin.
I think that’s what Jesus meant when he said “He who is without sin, cast the first stone” and all that. There’s sin, ie falling short of perfection, there’s hypocrisy, and there’s wickedness. They overlap but they aren’t the same.
I just wonder when homo sex become ok?