A ritual to cancel the effects of a blessing?

Dear editor,

Those opposed to the blessing of same-sex couples have a simple recourse: to curse them. There need be nothing malicious or uncharitable about this. The aim is simply to cancel the effects of the blessing and return the couples to their original, unblessed state.

A suitable ritual would have to be devised. One thinks bell, book, and candle; black robed figures processing widdershins; bored ravens on silver chains.

The effort would be far less than that required to teach a bishop to fly – which is in any event an undignified, shamanistic, and possibly dangerous activity.

Maurice Graham

Vancouver

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Let them be blessed

Dear editor, At last a letter (from Hugh MacKay, Toronto) which expresses the reality of scientific knowledge which the writers of the Bible did not have when they wrote about homosexuality.

 

With current understanding of the range of human (and other creation?s) sexuality, then we should now focus on the command to love and honour those unions which fulfill the loyalty and respect which we are to have for one another. That should include acknowledging the gay and lesbian unions between people who claim Christ as their Saviour and whose sexuality is not the sole expression of their humanity.

I agree with Hugh: let them be blessed.

Carolyn Herbert

Saanichton, B.C.

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Accepting the Bible

Dear editor, I have never written to your paper, but I have noticed that more and more focus is put on homosexuality.

 

Does the church not accept every word in the Bible as the word of God Himself? The word of God clearly states and without mistake that homosexuality is unacceptable to God.

Please stop sending me the Journal. I will no longer read it and also will instruct my children not to read it.

Tina Holden

Tofino, B.C.

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Undermined?

Dear editor, I read recently that in a sermon given in Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said that same-sex blessings undermine marriage.

 

My wife and I have several close friends who are gay. Some are Christian, some are not. Many of them are in long-term loving relationships. Last time I checked, my wife and I have been married for18 years. Could you please explain to me exactly how our marriage, or anyone else?s for that matter, is undermined?

George Vona
Toronto