{"id":2128,"date":"2020-02-25T15:21:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T15:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2128"},"modified":"2020-02-25T15:21:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T15:21:33","slug":"unnatural-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2128","title":{"rendered":"Unnatural practices?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The recent ridiculous Bishops&#8217; Guidelines on sex come under the spotlight in this Barking and Dagenham Post opinion piece published 12.2.20<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-blue-color\">What is natural? There\u2019s certainly\nnothing much \u2018natural\u2019 about Barking and Dagenham. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-blue-color\">The forests and wild animals that\nonce bordered the Thames have long gone. Nature equipped us with legs to get\naround, but now we use planes and boats and trains, not to mention cars, bikes\nand wheelchairs. And many of us have adopted the completely unnatural habit of\nwearing spectacles, unique in the animal kingdom.&nbsp; So why is there an obsession among some\nreligious folk about whether sexual practices and predilections are \u2018natural\u2019\nand accord with a divine plan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-blue-color\">In truth an endless variety of\nbehaviours is found in nature, and in people, and always has been. If the joy\nof sexual intimacy is a gift intended for procreation then <a href=\"https:\/\/reneelertzman.com\/anxiety\/valium-10-mg\/\">buy diazepam online uk cheap<\/a> does not having\nchildren make life meaningless?&nbsp; And what\nof nuns, monks and priests who eschew this gift?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-blue-color\">History is littered with religious zealots who have tried to dictate how we live and love. Rules have varied wildly on, say, numbers of partners and consent. For most of human history there was no such thing as marriage as we now know it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-blue-color\">No wonder the Bishops\u2019 \u2018Guidance\u2019 published last month that <em>\u2018only married heterosexuals should have sex\u2019<\/em> was greeted with outrage, dismay, and ridicule, not least among C of E members. This anachronistic nonsense provokes guilt, misery and bigotry.\u00a0 The established church enjoys unique powers and privileges, itself an anachronism. Better that they be used to tackle war, poverty and abuse of the planet, not how we love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul Kaufman<br>Chair, East London Humanists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent ridiculous Bishops&#8217; Guidelines on sex come under the spotlight in this Barking and Dagenham Post opinion piece published 12.2.20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9c4oP-yk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2129,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/2129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}