Mark Davies, the Roman Catholic Bishop
of Shrewsbury, used a Christmas sermon to link plans to legalize gay
marriage in Britain to Nazi attack on religion.
Prime Minister David Cameron's
Conservative Party has fast tracked a vote on the issue in the New
Year.
In his midnight mass, Davies accused
Cameron of attempting to redefine marriage in the name of progress
for “generations to come” without a mandate and “without any
serious consideration,” the UK's Daily
Mail reported.
“Past generations have gathered in
this cathedral on Christmas night amid many shadows which seemed to
obscure the future for them. We think of the ideologies of the past
century, Communism and Nazism, which in living memory threatened to
shape and distort the whole future of humanity. These inhuman
ideologies would each challenge in the name of progress the received
Christian understanding of the sanctity of human life and the family.
Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, a man without
clear, religious belief, saw in this deadly struggle nothing less
than the defense of Christian civilization.”
Ruth Hunt of gay rights advocate
Stonewall called Davies comments “deeply offensive to gay people
and their families.”
“Gay people are all too aware of the
horrific results of Nazi ideology due to the countless casualties of
the Holocaust,” she said.