Advent Calendar Day 7

Continuing my advent calendar of Youtube treats there are of course some advents that really seem to sparkle with the season and some that don't. I think this one from Marks and Spencer in 2007 hit the right balance.

Advent Calendar Day 6

Today's addition to my Advent Calender comes courtesy of Harry who is doing so well on Strictly Come Dancing and Dougie update, make that King Dougie, who is doing well on I'm a Celebrity but the words and music come from the Beach Boys.

Five on the Fifth December 2011

Sadly Stephen Chapman announced early last month that this was going to be the last month of his 5 on the 5th series. Check on the link to find out what the others have contributed to this grand finale. As for the theme he appears to have been a good predictor of weather systems as early this week he said it would be Winter Weekend on the weekend that a lot of the UK saw its first snow of winter.

Here are my Five for the Fifth for December

Last night my mother shouted out that it was snowing.

It fitted the theme so it had to be captured.

But in the morning I couldn't get a good shot of the snow

it had all gone

but there was other wintery conditions on the car

It may have been cold in church on Sunday morning

but it was looking the part

We also popped into the Christmas shop

People think that Old Saint Nick has a one day a year job

but it appears he works weekends too

at least for part of the year

That's it for another month...indeed that's the last 5 on the 5th apparently. Do check by the rest and see what they have posted, if you haven't before also check through the links to previous months.

Advent Calendar Day 5

Continuing my advent calendar of YouTube treats I'm handing it over to Linus to explain what Christmas is all about.

Advent Calendar Day 4: Second Sunday of Advent

Now I know it is only the first Sunday of Advent, but the four Sunday's are the four that lead up to Christmas Day. But with that being a Sunday it means that the first Sunday of Advent was last week.

However, for my Sundays in the advent calendar I am going to be more religious in outlook. Doesn't mean the religious elements aren't going to be fun.

So for a start I'm letting some silent monks perform Handel's Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah.

Don't let this woman near the White House

Michele Bachmann claims to stand up for family. But here latest utterances show contempt for women and men across America. I'm not just talking about those who are LGBT but actually those that she wants them to marry.

She was attending a cozy little Town Hall meeting only to be asked a question by Jane Schmidt who is head of her high school Gay Straight Alliance. The question was:

"What would you do to help protect GSAs in high school and protect the LGSBT community?"

The answer came back from the Republican chasing her party's nomination as Presidential Candidate:

"All of us have the same civil rights...There shouldn’t be any special rights or any special set of criteria. We all have the same civil rights."

The teen came back with a sharp follow up question:

"So, why can’t same-sex couples get married?"

The start of the congresswoman's response was shocking:

"They can get married..."

What? I though she was opposed to gay marriage saying things like "I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and a woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law."

but she carried on:

"...but they abide by the same laws as everyone else; they can marry a man if they’re a woman, or a woman if they’re a man."

Ah that sadly is more like her.

But hang on a cotton pickin' minute. What about those women who marry those gay men, or those men who marry those lesbians? What about them. Do they have rights to have a happy family life from the family loving Bachmann? Do they have the right not to have to deal with their spouse spending time at the gym or golf club or sewing circle or choir or whatever with their same sex friends without fretting about a relapse? Do they have the right not to have to deal the physiological issues of their spouse constantly denying who they are?

This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the considerations of the Lesbian or Gay individual that Bachmann is forcing to be Bisexual when they may not identify as that.

Forcing people to hide their sexuality and go into a marriage of convenience for the sake of fitting in is what people did before we accepted that is was natural for some of us to be attracted to those of the same sex; and desire to form a permanent sexual bound with that individual.

Surely Bachmann's proposal contravene the First and Eighth Amendments of the US Bill of Rights. The first is freedom of speech and expression, she is denying that expression through the right to assemble in the bedroom with the partner of their choice. The eighth surely inflicting this cruel and unusual punishment as excessive to be able to benefit from all the civil rights as she is advocating.

Below is the exchange captured on YouTube and note the lack of overwhelming applause for Bachmann's comments.

In which I agree with C of E on civil partnerships in church - sort of

So the Church of England have said they won't hold civil partnership ceremonies in their churches. I say good.

Now many of you who know that I am a campaigner for equal marriage may be a little shocked by opening line, but let me explain.

The consultation in England and Wales is not as complete as the one the is drawing to a close in Scotland this week. It only has one option a civil partnership to be carried out by a religious celebrant. The Scots are looking at equalising marriage, allowing religious groups to carry out same sex marriage and looking at the necessity or not of maintaining civil partnerships if that is the case, as well as looking and the England and Wales proposals. You will notice as I do that Northern Ireland hasn't got any consultation on equal marriage of any type going on or pending.

However, why do I agree with the Church of England on this? Probably not for the reason that the Bishops are in opposition but for the sheer hypocricy of the idea of civil partnerships being carried out on religious premises when a civil marriage is carried out by the same registrar at the registry office of other designated building. Of course the Government aren't proposing that civil marriage is to be carried out on religious premises that would be pointless. If people want a religious location to carry out their ceremony of commitment they want the hymns, prayers, religious lesson for marriage all interspersed within the ceremony. But with a civil partnership that cannot be the case, so it is nowhere near equal.

You see for me as an LGBT person of faith a civil partnership in a church just isn't the same as what my other friends get. Also a civil ceremony should not be in a religious setting, if you want a civil ceremony its because for whatever reason you don't want a religious element. However, there are religious groups that want to be able to carry out same sex marriage. There is religious freedom in the proposals which allow religious groups to opt-in to the ability to carry out same-sex ceremonies. Because of that the Church of England is not opposing the proposals.

I repeat.

The Church of England are NOT opposing the suggestion of civil partnerships in religious buildings, they just don't see it as something that their church will buy into.

Note before anyone criticises me for having a go at the good that Lynne Featherstone has achieved in getting this far, I'm not. On the day that she made her announcement at Lib Dem conference I did talk to her about these issues. She said she had done the best she could, seeing as the men who debated our coalition deal had forgotten to include anything in their deal about this issue and that she was aware it was far short of what the Lib Dem policy on the issue was and she'd carry on working for that to be fully implemented.