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Thursday 24 May 2012

Tangled webs and gay marriage

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. At least I think that’s how it goes. It certainly applies to John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, who’s been caught telling porkies.

“There is joy in heaven when a sinner repents, so they say,” intones the Guardian. “But the archbishop seems quite unrepentant. He might have graciously said: We were wrong about civil partnerships. Now we see the error of our ways and would like to celebrate the honourable estate of civil partnership. Rather, he makes a claim that is not only false, but whose falsehood is quite easily checked in Hansard.

It seems – and you can read the full story there – that he said bishops in the House of Lords, where 26 of them have an automatic right to sit, just because they’re bishops, were in favour of civil partnerships, but their voting record says otherwise.

Naughty, naughty, naughty! Or it could be that he was mistaken. It happens. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he’ll recognise his error as perhaps a “senior moment”.

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