Dear Sir,
On page 2 of the August issue of EN you carried a piece from the Christian Institute which claimed that ‘all married men can legally be called “wives” and all married women called “husbands” under the government’s gay marriage bill’.
But a look at the actual guidance (published in the article) shows that the folk at the Christian Institute need to learn to read more carefully.
The government’s guidance says that, in interpreting old legislation, the word ‘husband’ can be understood in future to refer to ‘a man or woman in a same-sex marriage as well as a man married to a woman’. It does not say that ‘husband’ can ever be understood to refer to a woman married to a man — which was the headline, bold print claim of the article.
The Christian Institute also fails to note that the purpose of this guidance is to enable courts to interpret old laws in the light of the reality of gay marriage and it is really nothing at all to do with what people can be ‘called’.
I think the government's legislation is ridiculous and profoundly damaging, but the Christian Institute does the cause of the gospel no good at all by sending out press releases which mangle meaning just as badly as the government does.
Yours, Editor: we asked the Christian Institute about this. They said:
‘Having reviewed our article, we think your reader is correct. We have made an honest mistake and we will revise our article accordingly. Our online articles go through a rigorous checking procedure by someone other than the author to avoid this sort of mishap.
‘This is because, as your reader says, it does not reflect well on Christians if we are careless with facts. On this occasion, the checking process let us down. It was not a deliberate attempt to mislead. We do apologise.
‘However, while this element of the government’s plans only applies to same-sex marriage, not all marriages, we still feel it demonstrates the linguistic difficulties and confusion that can arise from redefining marriage in law.’
