It’s not morally acceptable to us

Editor

News editor Please allow us to reply to the letter from Steve de WiggondeneSheppard.

To take his last point first, we are most certainly not ashamed of ourselves for standing up for what, until very recently, was a mainstream and orthodox opinion. We accept homosexual acts have been legalised but this does not make them morally acceptable to us.

Same-sex couples were given the protection of a civil partnership and should not seek to usurp the sacrament of marriage.

We wrote in defence of Mr Richard Page and to protest against his unfair dismissal from the bench for daring to go against political correctness by voicing, in private, behind closed doors, doubt as to whether a same-sex couple would be the best foster parents in a specific adoption case.

Somebody in that room clearly found it expedient to leak this and, as a result, a good man and a conscientious magistrate has been removed from the bench to society’s loss. The architect of this is the one who should be ashamed.

We stand foursquare behind Mr Page and any other person of any religion who suffers on account of it. Nothing can make us ashamed of our beliefs.

The Church of England is perfectly entitled to decide what services it will perform; it is not for the secular government to dictate religious beliefs.

As to your correspondent’s grandfather’s activities at Belsen Mrs Sadler’s father was there - Guards’ Armoured Division - Coldstream Guards. This is, however, incidental to the main point of our letter. Bronwen & Ray Sadler, Station Road, Headcorn

I respond to the letter from Mr and Mrs Sadler in the KM March 18 regarding same-sex marriage. I could write so much, but it’s private. I disagree with their views wholeheartedly. Instead, I think the following quotes sum up the situation.

“Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion that we shall discover Truth, Reason and Morality” – Baron d’Holbach. J.Sutton, via email

“I was born a sinner too. My sin is mentioned in the Bible 25 times. I tried to change, but couldn’t... Luckily, society learned to accept us left-handed people.” Nicholas Ferroni, educator and activist