GERRY Braiden asks whether there is a "more stridently secular political party in Scotland than the SNP" ("Shadow of independence hangs over our national church", The Herald, November 22) The answer must be "perhaps not".
Yet when I joined the SNP more than 30 years ago it was a comfortable place for Christians to be. Leading figures such as Gordon Wilson and Donald Stewart were openly practising presbyterians and its young, able and clearly emerging leader, Alex Salmond, proudly admitted to a Christian family background. Labour regularly described the SNP as "the protestant party",an appellation that was hugely successful in the west of Scotland in keeping votes with Labour until recent times.
However the highly secular legislation of this week on same-sex "marriage" has left many practising Christians with a quandary about whom to vote for, as secularism has now infested all the Scottish political parties. Alex Salmond bets heavily on his conviction that those of us committed to an independent Scotland have nowhere else to go. The Tories are possibly the least affected by the secular malady, but there again they are Tories. These are difficult times indeed for Christians.
Alan Clayton,
Westfield, Letters Way,
Strachur, Argyll.
MARTIN Conroy presents a depressingly narrow view of marriage, suggesting it exists solely for the creation and upbringing of children (Letters, November 22) .
I've been married for almost 10 years. I don't recall the Church of Scotland minister asking me to commit to having children during the wedding ceremony. Instead I remember promises of love, respect, patience, support and understanding.
I married my wife not because I wanted children (although I'm now lucky to have two wonderful daughters) but because I wanted to show commitment to the person I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.
Furthermore, I am not aware of the right to marry being withheld from those heterosexual couples who are either unwilling or unable to have children.
Allowing same sex-couples to marry does not weaken marriage, it enriches it.
The fact MSPs from across the political divide gave such overwhelming support to equal marriage, something which is now legal in countries across the world, should make those who oppose it pause and reflect on whether it is they who are on the wrong side of the argument.
Kevin Lang,
18 Kingsburgh Crescent,
Edinburgh.
I LOOK forward to Martin Conroy's proposals for forbidding marriage to the elderly and others who cannot procreate.
Further, since, whether or not they are allowed to marry, quite a lot of gay people are going to be bringing up children, I wonder whether his professed concern for children would allow him to concede that those same-sex parents may be married or whether he thinks it better for the children that the same-sex couple are bringing them up should be forbidden the security and prestige of marriage and should instead be stigmatised and reviled.
And let him not say that they shouldn't be having children in the first place. We need an ethics geared to the real world, not to a fantasy world in which those who do not conform to the picture which strikes Mr Conroy as ideal have to suffer.
Paul Brownsey,
19 Larchfield Road,
Bearsden.
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