Selwyn Publishes Open Letter to Archbishop of York

Selwyn College votes to publish an open letter written to the Archbishop of York in protest at the Selwyn alumnus’ comments on same-sex marriage

by Hannah Wilkinson

This article is 14 years old

Wednesday February 8 2012, 10:25am

Selwyn College undergraduates have voted to publish an open letter concerning recent comments of the college’s notable alumnus, Archbishop John Sentamu.

The letter, which will be sent to the Archbishop today, asks him to reconsider comments made last month, in which he compared the proposed legalisation of same-sex marriage to the actions of a ‘dictator’.

The Archbishop gave his opinion on same-sex marriage in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, prompting demonstrations from gay rights campaigners, including one outside York Minster.

The letter also questions the Archbishop’s statement that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman, arguing that the definition of marriage has changed ‘throughout history’ and that its modern understanding as an expression of love ‘should be equally applicable to both homosexual and heterosexual couples’.

The proposal to publish an open letter on the subject was initially brought before the JCR committee by LGBT officer Lewis Bartlett.

Bartlett told Varsity that he felt by making his comments public the Archbishop had invited debate on the matter, in which it was important for Selwyn students to be involved.

‘As a notable alumnus of Selwyn, the Archbishop represents the college on a public platform and as his views don’t align with the current undergraduates we thought it was important for our views to be publicly stated in opposition to his’.

The proposed publishing of the letter was put to a JCR open meeting on Sunday, in which students had the opportunity to debate the content of the letter. After a vote, the motion passed to the stage of college-wide referendum.

After twenty-four hours of voting the bill passed with 155 votes – 65% of the vote in favour, and 27% against. The turnout was high at over 59%.

Selwynite James Mottram's campaign urged for maximum turnout to 'to show our support for the JCR's Marital Equality Proposal!

Bartlett said of the victory: ‘I’m very glad that the majority of Selwyn undergraduates support marital equality – it says a lot that the current youth are in support of legalisation’.

The governments of both England and Scotland have announced consultations on the issue of same-sex marriage, the consultation in Scotland eliciting over 50,000 responses.

The Selwyn College JCR open letter on marriage equality can be read here: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1ujy49dDFo9ydPCHA55NyNcOjbGkSDCueMsQFaMxHt1g

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