Former Queen’s Chaplain on our “philosophically and theologically incoherent society”

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A former Honorary Chaplain to Her Late Majesty the Queen, Dr Gavin Ashenden is a vocal proponent of one man, one woman marriage. He tells me why standing up for real marriage is so vitally important in today’s society.

“One needs to organise society in a way that allows people to have children in a culture that is best for the children”, he says. So-called same-sex marriage-involves “turning children into consumer items”. This offends “one of the most basic human rights which is to have access to your biological mother and father”.

In redefining marriage, legislators, Dr Ashenden explains, undermined the concepts of consummation, adultery and infidelity – they “just dropped it”. No-fault divorce then removed the concepts from law.

“Behind it all are the notions that romantic love and erotic love are the things that define us most” and many people agree this is “hopelessly narrow”. But, Dr Ashenden says, this thinking has changed “the very foundation of the way we organise society”.

Large-scale academic studies support real marriage, he says. We should be dealing with truth, “and not allow values to distort the facts”. One problem with same-sex ‘marriage’ is a “constant determination to pick a certain series of values and then to distort or get rid of facts that don’t support it”.

“We’re engaged”, he continues, “in a culture which places existential autonomy at the top of a hierarchy of values”. This means, “you can make the world whatever you think it ought to be in your head”.

Advising Liz Truss, our new Prime Minister, Dr Ashenden recommends that she “engages in a piece of intellectual revisionism”. The consequences of undermining key institutions such as one man, one woman marriage, means “we’re having to prop up the fall out of human incompetence”. Real marriage, he concludes, is one of those ethics that would result in “fewer demands on the state’s budget”.

C4M knows the value of real marriage to society – and the cost to society of marginalising its importance. We call on the new Prime Minister and her Cabinet-to implement policies throughout Government-that recognise one man, one woman marriage uniquely, as the stabilising bedrock of society.