The Theological Forum of the Church of Scotland has produced a report, An Approach to the Theology of Same-Sex Marriage, in advance of next month’s General Assembly. The report examines three overlapping kinds of argument in some detail:
- arguments based on understandings of human rights;
- analogical arguments which try to build outwards from traditional understandings of marriage; and
- fully theological arguments for the admissibility of same-sex marriage.The Forum proposes the following Deliverance to the Assembly:
“The General Assembly
- Receive the Report.
- Note the Forum’s range of activities and support given to the Church. (Section 2)
- Receive the report “An Approach to the Theology of Same-Sex Marriage” as a resource to the Church and commend it as a basis for study and discussion. (Section 3 and Appendix)
- Invite the Church to take stock of its history of discrimination at different levels and in different ways against gay people and to apologise individually and corporately and seek to do better.
- Instruct the Legal Questions Committee to undertake a study of the matters which would require to be addressed in any new legislation permitting Ministers and Deacons to officiate at same-sex marriage ceremonies, with a view to presenting a Report to the 2018 General Assembly.”If the Assembly agree the Deliverance, the matter will presumably be back on the agenda in May 2018.
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