Letters: On gay marriage, church listens to other cultures

The following letters appear in the 18th January edition of the Independent

Justin Welby (PA)

I think that both your journalists and your correspondents are a bit confused about the meeting of Anglican primates in Canterbury (“Anglican leaders defy liberals and condemn same-sex marriage”, 15 January).

It was neither “the Church of England” nor “the Established Church” which censured the American Episcopal Church over the question of gay marriage: it was the leaders of the 38 independent provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Justin Welby is not an Anglican Pope: he cannot dictate to other Anglican churches. He is simply, for historical reasons, the first among equals in a very varied group of Christians who very often disagree with one another, and say so.

Surely that is more healthy than forcing everyone to toe the latest American or western European politically correct line?

The question of whether the union of two people of the same sex can be called marriage is an extremely difficult one, and will not be easily resolved. By consulting other Anglican leaders, Archbishop Justin has bravely done his best. The fact that the result is against the wishes of many (but by no means all) in the western, European and American-dominated world at least shows that the Anglican Communion, far from being an irrelevance, actually listens to voices from other cultures.

John Williams

West Wittering, West Sussex

The decision by Anglican bishops to sanction their brothers and sisters in the USA will obviously cause deep hurt. The hardliners on the same-sex marriage issue would do well to reflect on the words of hymn writer Frederick Faber, who wrote as follows:

'But we make His love too

narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify his

strictness

With a zeal He will not own.’

The Rev Andrew McLuskey

Stanwell, Surrey

Paying for the Queen’s birthday party

Rosie Millard misses one very important point (“At £150 ahead, the Queen’s 90th birthday party is turning into a right royal PR disaster”, 16 January).

As a trustee of a small charity, I should be very disturbed if it were suggested that we spend any of our money, which was donated to fulfil the charitable purposes set out in our trust deed, in order to attend a birthday party.

Indeed, I would question whether it was legal to do so, even if the party was for the charity’s patron. I suggest that the Charity Commission should be asked to pronounce on this.

David Bell

Standon, Hertfordshire

I take it that, following normal practice for large public-sector contracts, there was an open tendering process for companies wishing to organise the Patron’s lunch to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. No doubt it is coincidental that the successful bidder was a company of which one of her grandsons is a director.

Gordon Elliot

Burford

Oxfordshire

Yes, but how will hospitals manage?

Even if, like Steve Richards (12 January), we swallow whole Jeremy Hunt’s apparently benevolent motive of making weekend hospital admissions as safe and effective as those made mid-week, then it still has not been shown how this can be done without either increasing the hours of an already overstretched workforce, or reducing its Monday to Friday rosters, or training and hiring a lot more doctors. It is just plain common sense.

As it is, despite some broad statistical evidence about differing outcomes, several personal experiences of weekend serious admissions for my wife, my son and myself lead me to believe that our hospitals do in fact already work 24/7 with the insufficient resources given them.

Philip Brindle

Bedford

“The proposals for a seven-day NHS should be part of a debate about resources and structure. Even without that debate Hunt must prevail, breaking a barrier about working that is already broken elsewhere in the fast-changing world of work”, writes Steve Richards in a profoundly depressing statement (12 January).

Yes it “should be part of a debate about resources and structure”, but also about having an NHS staffed by employees who are not so overworked and demoralised that they emigrate or leave the profession.

That workers have had their working conditions unilaterally changed and rewritten by their employers in many fields should not be regarded as an acceptable blueprint for the future or justification for further shackling of those who serve others.

Eddie Dougall

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Most of us are aware of the difficulty patients experience in being discharged from hospital after the pharmacy has closed – usually 5pm during the week, and midday on a Saturday; they don’t open at all on a Sunday. This situation blocks beds and is a real barrier to the creation of a seven-day NHS, but would cost money to rectify.

The two groups of people whom hospitals are full of at weekends are doctors and nurses. The NHS can only exist at all because of the goodwill of groups such as the junior doctors to work way beyond the requirements of their contracts. It will be the public who suffer when this goodwill is lost.

Isabel Clutton

Newcastle-under-Lyme

The ramifications of providing a full range of NHS services over seven days obviously extend far beyond junior doctor staffing levels. Many patients require non-emergency ambulances for transport to and from outpatients. How could this be provided to the same standard seven days a week without extra funding?

There are many, many entirely predictable financial and manpower implications that Jeremy Hunt and his team do not seem to have considered.

Frances Warrington

Wombourne, South Staffordshire

What’s all this about junior doctors, in striking, being guilty of breaking their Hippocratic Oath?

These days the oath comes in various forms and, as far as I can tell, none says that doctors must be on continual duty and must not strike.

After all, I assume that the oath is not being broken when doctors have their holidays, sabbaticals or time off to see the family – or, indeed, resign. Which is better? Resigning en masse (surely permissible) or striking for the odd days?

Peter Cave

London W1

It’s gang culture, not immigrants

Having worked as a probation officer in London with groups of male youths, and understanding how gang culture develops, I was not totally surprised by the muggings and assaults of women and girls in Cologne and Hamburg on New Year’s Eve.

German police have identified 32 of the assailants as migrants from Algeria, Morocco, Iran and Syria. It is likely that right-wing groups will use this event to defend their anti-immigration policies. But the problem has its roots in the fact that many more young males than women, children and older people seem to have been admitted to the country. This, I fear, will create long-term social problems.

I do hope that we will learn from Germany that it is important to select a wide range of migrants by age, sex and country of origin.

Bob Parsons

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

The issue of violent misogynists today must be clearly separated from the desperate plight of vulnerable refugees and must not offer racists another cynical excuse in history to attack “foreigners”.

Mike Bor

London W2

Tory bill of rights ignores power

A “British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” (“Chakrabarti to step down as head of human rights group Liberty”, 14 January)? What nonsense! Rights don’t go together with responsibilities: a newborn baby has all the rights in the world, the right to be fed, sheltered – even loved – by any adult in his vicinity, but has no responsibilities whatever – because he has no power.

It is power that goes with responsibility, as even Spiderman knows “With great power comes great responsibility” (I think he was quoting someone else actually), and it follows that with zero power comes zero responsibility. The Tories would like to take the issue of power out of the agenda – please don’t let them.

Henrietta Cubitt

Cambridge

Crude? Abusive? Bring it on

What a strange and unpleasant world Grace Dent lives in (12 January), where offensive behaviour and crude, abusive, language are to be applauded by an “audience advanced enough to cope”.

The Emperor’s new clothes come to mind.

Graham Allen

Sheffield