Social Engineering, the Bible, Tradition and Political Ideology

Quite a grand title, and I'm not sure I'll manage to collect all those strands together in this quick (I hope!) post, but I'm responding to that person denigrating the name of Archbishop Cranmer once again.

In the post linked, he bemoans the whole gay marriage thing that's currently going on here in the UK. The simple gist of things is that the state is legislating for marriage to no longer be between a man and a woman. This is, unfortunately, affording many church leaders great opportunities to make statements that play into the media and general public's characterisation of them as out of touch and homophobic. "Cranmer" lists a few of these.

Then he goes off on one about David Cameron, the current Conservative leader and Prime Minister, who has put the full weight of his support behind gay marriage. "Cranmer" then says that in doing this, Cameron "aligns his conservatism with the rather antithetical socialist instinct to engineer society".

Does he?! Why exactly is the state stepping in and saying who can and can't be married anything other than socialist engineering? If the state says it's just men and women, that's social engineering just as saying it can be men and men and women and women. If anything, loosening this definition is a sign of less socialist engineering.

The bigger point here is another one that "Cranmer" appears lost on - it's the separation of church and state, which has to be a good thing - precisely because it should take us, in an ideal situation, away from social engineering (of course, in reality, the state just engages in a different kind of social engineering, the type pushed by the most powerful lobbying groups).

There's no reason why the state should impose Christian values via the marriage system, and in fact there's a very good argument why it shouldn't, put forward by a great friend of mine in a very insightful blog post this week: "What good is it, other than in a purely utilitarian sense, if a person is kept from sinning at the point of a bayonet?"

Provided there is no equality legislation forcing Christians to marry against their conscience (or athiests to do so, for that matter), then there is no reason why the state shouldn't change its definition of marriage. The church needn't change its. I believe in the linked post, "Cranmer" is too wedded to history and tradition, where the church has had a strong role in the state here in the UK, rather than relying on Biblical principles. I believe that is about as socialist as it gets - if socialism is defined as social engineering.

In case a reminder was needed...

...Jesus also most certainly was not a left winger either, or at least a left winger in the form of someone like Sunny Hundal. The blog is attempting to create some kind of outrage out of the fact that a Christian group called Christian Concern is holding a conference at Exeter College.

This Christian Concern (CC) group is simply labelled as bigotted, and homophobic, without at any point the case against them being put forward. Simply, it seems, Hundal has something rather sinister against Nadine Dorries, and hence any friend of Dorries's must also be very sinister.

Judging by past articles on the Liberal Conspiracy (LC) website, what CC have probably said at some point is that they believe something slightly different to Hundal on homosexuality. They have probably pointed out that some folk of a homosexual orientation are not comfortable with that (just as, presumably, some heterosexual folk are), and perhaps seek some help. Pretty innocuous? Nope - that's bona fide homophobia for you right there!

Thankfully, in reading the comments on Hundal's latest rant, it's clear there are plenty of people ready to put him in his place.

Confused?

I'm not sure I can follow the logic of this. It starts with a fairly commonplace swipe at anyone who happens to not be on the political right - how dare that nasty Labour government have given some folk in parts of the UK some devolved powers.

But then it goes on to rail against attempts to restrict power being devolved to local people - the right for people to utter prayers before a council meeting (does it really matter? I don't get why a conservative is so het up about something as trivial as this - shouldn't ministers' time be better spent elsewhere?).

I don't quite get it - if Labour devolves power it's an unmitigated bad thing, throwing away centuries of history (because history is all that matters when making decisions), yet if the Conservatives do it, it's localism, it's getting the government out of the way, it's an unmitigated good thing.

Does he want powers to be devolved, or not? Or does it just matter what party it is that's doing it?