Mutex wrote:It's odd, because Farron has consistently voted in favour of LGBT rights, so he doesn't seem to have had trouble separating his religious beliefs from his politics before. The question has still dogged him though, and he seems a pretty ineffective leader anyway so I'm fairly happy he's standing down.
The way their spokesman was telling it on the wireless this morning, the issue was that personally Farron supports all those things, but he belongs to a faith community that's split on the issue and he didn't feel it was his place to pronounce on theological matters (i.e. whether homosexuality is a sin) and also possibly didn't want to offend co-religionists who disagreed. Being repeatedly asked to do so put him in an impossible position.
In any case, sins and unlawful acts are only somewhat overlapping sets. As a legislator, he's concerned with the latter and has no duty nor, arguably, remit regarding the former. (Having said that, there's a difference between legalising something and condoning it: e.g. you could legalise homosexuality but not feel it should be celebrated by same-sex marriage).
Personally I find his position unfathomable, but really that's because I can't empathise with his religious beliefs. I can't see how he wouldn't look at his own voting record, look at his so-called holy text, and conclude that one or other was going to have to go. But most religious people manage to tread this tightrope most of the time, so.
