Consultation Over Transsexuality Proposals

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE United Kingdom

PRESS RELEASE

December 10 2002

EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE CALLS FOR FULL PUBLIC CONSULTATION OVER TRANSSEXUALITY PROPOSALS

In response to reports that transsexuals are expected to be given the right to marry and be legally recognised in their adopted gender, the Evangelical Alliance is calling on the Government to hold a full public consultation before any legislation is announced.

“Our position remains that it is not possible for a person to change their sex,” said Public Affairs Manager, Don Horrocks. “Therefore any ensuing `marriage’ of transsexual people of the same sex could not be regarded as marriage from a Christian perspective.

“Considering that the longstanding matrimonial law of this country will be radically affected by these proposals, together with traditional understanding of what constitutes male and female, we would expect the Government to consult the public as widely as possible before proposing any detailed legislation,” he added.

The Alliance believes in championing the basic human rights of minority groups and we can appreciate some of the difficulties transsexual people may face. But these proposals, which follow a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, are of such immense importance that they deserve wider scrutiny.

Giving transsexuals the right to change their birth certificates should also be resisted. If the green light is given for birth certificates to be legally altered to reflect an individual’s self-chosen desire to change the way they wish their gender legally to be presented and treated by others, appropriate third parties must retain the right to see original documentation indicating an individual’s sex at birth.

Ends

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NOTES TO EDITORS: The Evangelical Alliance UK was founded in 1846 and today represents over one million evangelical Christians in the UK with nearly 7,000 churches and organisations in membership or affiliate membership. The Evangelical Alliance is a founding member of the World Evangelical Alliance, which now has 120 member Alliances, together representing 160 million evangelicals worldwide.

An evangelical is someone who believes that Jesus is both God and man; that the Bible is the ultimate authority in all that it addresses; and that the traditional beliefs of the Church such as the physical resurrection of Jesus are true. An evangelical owns a commitment to Christ as their personal saviour and a desire to live out that faith in the community.

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