Primus on Civil Partnerships.

I was intending to discuss the child cryptically mentioned two posts ago, but have put that off to say hurrah! for Bishop Idris Jones, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, for his statement reported in today's Sunday Herald. The debate over civil partnerships in Scotland has led him to want to speak publicly about the fact that the different Christian denominations hold very different views on non-traditional relationships, a fact largely ignored by the public as a whole. The Roman Catholic Church is firmly against civil partnerships, a postition "unaltered and rock solid", and it now seems likely that a majority view in the Church of Scotland will go the same way.

However, said +Idris, "that is not where we are as a church", pointing out that "there are many Christians who think that the legislation on civil partnerships is appropriate and an enlightened policy that should be supported." The RC church and the C of S apparently declined to comment on his statement.

A first time for everything ....

Home from my wanderings, I am left at this point with the feeling that for a small country Scotland covers a big area! It took us 8 hours to come home yesterday, and I shall write about that journey later. But now I want to look back at our experience in Thurso, and all that happened there.

We arrived in the late afternoon after a drive up the A9 - the road that links Edinburgh to Thurso. The hotel in which we stayed, The Weigh Inn, doesn't appear clearly on Google Earth, but is right there on Flash Earth - see the screen shot. It was too gloomy to see much, and we were too busy socialising with the happy couple and our friends who had travelled north with us. Thurso is about the same size as Dunoon, and they have a Somerfield's (lucky them) just like us. There is a Lidl and there is to be a Tesco, so there are advantages to being there. Apart from that, it was decidedly chilly and we were glad to be indoors with the Prosecco.

The morning brought us our first view of Orkney - that's the distant land mass in the pic - and Scabster, just along the road. There was a sense of immense space, of being on the edge of things, of the long road like a string stretched behind us. But we were there for a marriage - for that's how I think of the Civil Partnership ceremony to which we had been invited. A marriage of souls who were meant to be together. The ceremony, in front of friends and family, was dignified and touching. The photo session afterwards was joyous, the few speeches happy and appropriate, the food good and the crack excellent. The disco was too loud for my taste, but that's ok - we sat in the bar with other sensitive plants and chatted, emerging for the odd dance.

In other words, it was like any other wedding celebration. The only difference was that Douglas and Peter are men. I am so pleased to have been invited to share their day, and utterly delighted that they are together. May they live long and prosper!