Blessings of same-sex couples in the Catholic Church

"The first step is to make an enquiry with the vicar of the church where you’d like to marry. Every vicar will want to help you, though there are some who don’t feel able to offer a wedding to couples where one or both of the partners has been divorced. In any case, your vicar will want to talk frankly about your past and hopes for the future and will then be able to advise you."
from your own link - https://www.churchofengland.org/life-events/your-church-wedding/just-engaged/marriage-after-divorce . We do not know the relevant details of every legal divorce, what individuals will share with a vicar, and as possible in the case you cited in your post, particularly what someone could not prove about what happened. Plus, is this ""We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us." (from here https://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/07/royal.wedding.sins/ ) something you believe could be required in a ceremony to bless a same sex union?

Regarding Article 20, whereby everything depends on one's understanding of "God's Word written", that is why "there are some who don’t feel able to offer a wedding to couples where one or both of the partners has been divorced". Personally I admit that I do not understand the current position of the C of E on the 39 Articles, as far as I can make out, it is not obligatory for anyone to respect them in the C of E. I will grant you that at this time the C of E is a difficult organization to defend, but personally I do not see "it is already permitted to ignore Article 20 over divorce" as a very strong argument for doing anything. I would rather see a requirement to support the Articles, at least by the clergy, and at least a desire to follow suit, expected of all confirmed church members.

 

You left out an important part of the website's text: "Even if it is not possible to do your wedding, they may offer a blessing service after a civil wedding."

If we have created a work-around for when weddings are not available to divorcees, why not make it avaolable for the LGBTQIA community? Why is fudging the rules for one group acceptable and for the other group not? I don't believe the answer lies in the Word of God but rather in the prejudice of men.

Also, I think you may be missing my point. The issue that I am trying point out isn't so much about a past divorce being a bar to remarriage, in which case the penitential prayer you cited may be an acceptable remedy. The point I am trying to make is that, according to the verses I cited earlier, any romantic relationship that a divorcee engages in while the previous spouse lives, is adulterous and will remain so until the death of the previous spouse. No amount of ceremony will change that. What I'm saying is that if one believes that the Church cannot bless unions that go against God's Word; then one must include in that category relationships where one or both people are divorced and their previous spouses still live. Because the Church doesn't incline to do that, this argument is only a pretext to discriminate against its LGBTQIA members. Which is sad and unfair IMHO.

 

This notion rather begs the question whether same-sex marriage is even a real thing.

In the beginning God made man male and female, and that is the design which we have been formed in. It’s not a question of whether the church is discriminatory in refusing to perform the marriage rites of same sex couples, but of whether marriage vows can be validly exchanged by those couples in the first place.

 

If Adam and Eve were married, who married them, where were rings mentioned in the story, and who were the witnesses?

 

How does it beg that question? Gay couples get married everyday all over the world. Of course it's real.

 

That’s funny but of course those things aren’t necessary for a marriage.

 

Isn't the important thing vowed in marriage to keep only to the person you are marrying, for their lifetime?

Shouldn't the blessing be aimed at providing the power from God to enable the keeping of that vow? That does not specify gender does it?

What other vows that are made in marriage might suggest that the other person receiving that particular vow HAS to be of the opposite gender or the vow would be obviously invalid?

Just asking?

 

Gay couples go through a ceremony that looks or pretends to be marriage. That’s doesn’t make it marriage.

I can pretend all day to veto acts of congress but it doesn’t make me the president.

 

In part yes. But Gods first commandment was to be fruitful and multiply. And what kind of couple must one be a part of to fulfill such a commandment?

 

I think you will find that in the UK you cannot be legally married without the giving or exchanging of a ring or rings. i.e. the bride at the very least must receive and accept a ring or no marriage can be deemed to have taken place. The same is true of vows and witnesses. If they do not happen and are recorded, no marriage has taken place and there is no evidence of it., so it does not, in the eyes of the law, exist.
.

 

So can only young fecund females get married or is it allowed for menopausable women or barren ones, or infertile men, to get married?
.

 

Fair enough, but in this context we are, I think, talking about whether God recognizes the marriage or not. At least, I am. If the Church is principally concerned with the opinion of the local magistrate over that of the Lord, then the Church has some ‘splaining to do.

 

Yes I am aware of this objection, it is commonly enough raised when someone, as I did, makes the point that procreation is at least one function of marriage.

The answer I have heard, which I will now parrot back, is that old age was not an obstacle to the conception of John the Baptist or to Abraham and Sarah.

But miracles aside, a man an woman, at least ordinarily and barring any defect incurred by the fall, are naturally predisposed to the continuation of the race, whereas man and man are wholly incapable of it and have been since the world was first created.

 

That might be a problem for men who have had previous sexual experience before marriage. They would be forever committing adultery against the first sexual partner which they attempted to be 'fruitful' with.
.

 

But they can adopt. God adopted us.

 

Oof. I am going to need a pile of annulments.

 

While true, God has adopted us, he is also directly responsible for our creation, with the parents participation.

A same-sex couple adopting a child is similar in the first way but completely different in the second.

 

I can see the analagy but with artificial insemination there need be no sexual intercourse involved if the all-male 'couple' found a willing surrogate, like Hagar for instance in Abrahams case. Though Abraham was probably sexually involved. That was once not frowned upon, though I doubt Sarah was all that pleased about the arrangement she proposed. No one cared much what women thought about anything back then though. Times change.
.

 

This is incorrect - "Rings are not required but can be exchanged if the couple wishes to." https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/f...rtner is required to,if the couple wishes to.

 

Maybe, but they definitely need witnesses, definitely need to make vows, and someone authorised to do so has to act as registrar.
.