Basically Becky

The old blog has been deleted and this is its replacement.  Welcome!

Recent events in bullet points:

• Since Alfie returned from the vet a couple of weeks ago, he appears to have adopted a 'whatcha gonna do about it, punk?' attitude which, last night, culminated in him escaping AGAIN.  God knows how, because as far as we can see there are no holes in the fence big enough for him to get through, but by the time OH found him in our neighbour's garden he was caked in an utterly comical amount of mud.  When we got up this morning he was in (almost) pristine condition, but as he's slept most of the day I'll assume it took him most of the night to achieve that!
  
  
• College is finished, which is kind of another motivation to start this blog. It's looking like the next year will be less structured than I'm used to, but there'll be plenty to do!  We're enrolling in a Journey in Faith course in the new academic year, which we're very excited about because it's running in the daytime (thus avoiding babysitter issues) AND it's at Launde Abbey, which is one of our favourite places to be.

There's a big furore today about what the Church of England has to say about the government's proposals to legalise same-sex marriage.  I've attempted to read the whole document but I'll confess to not having managed it because I found it pretty inaccessible.  I hear what they're saying about civil partnerships; that they supported them and that as they address the legal inequalities they don't see the point in pushing for same-sex marriage.  Equally, I understand the Church's point about men and women being different and having different roles.  

But on an emotional level, I still find this to be a stance that I cannot accept, because it still sets gay and lesbian Christians apart from their heterosexual counterparts and allows for committed unions between people of the same sex to be seen as 'second-rate'.

Unsurprisingly, there's been plenty of responses.  As one Guardian reporter pointed out, this statement has been made on behalf of the Church of England as a whole but has not gone before General Synod nor been discussed at a Diocesan level - so how representative is it?