Only Brits who live in Blandings Castle.
That construction is far more common in the US now.
It’s not an arm of the government.
The C of E is not an arm of the govt. That is a totally ridiculous thing to say.
Why is it not an arm of the government? It’s the established church, headed by the Queen and financed in part by historic land grants, and its bishops are selected by the PM (and most sit in the House of Lords). It even has authority to legislate, subject to Parliamentary approval.
ETA: I get that most Britons don’t give a shit about it, and in practice it has little or no influence on government policy, but it is in every technical sense part of the government.
Having that opinion disqualifies you from having an opinion on the subject. The Army is an arm of the government. The Civil Service are an arm of the govt. The C of E is merely the ‘Established Church’ - which means frack all in reality.
If the Church was ‘an arm of the government’ it would be controlled by it. It would do its bidding. Your opinion is palpably absurd.
It’s so absurd it’s really not worth arguing about but as a note to non-Brits. No - the C of E is not an ‘arm’ of the Govt. :rolleyes:
Oops! Freakin iPhone.
The Government has already said it won’t enforce religious institutions to hold religious marriages for SSM, it’s just a civil matter. Not sure the C of E could really be called an arm of the Government anyway - an arm of the State, perhaps, but it’s not like Cameron can tell it what to do.
Canada is an established country, headed by the Queen and composed in part by historic land grants. That does not make Canada an arm of the English government.
Think of it this way. You are the head of ACME Corp. and you are also head of the Society for the Preservation of Roadrunners. That does not necessarily mean that ACME Corp is an arm of the Society.
I don’t know much of anything about this, but is Really Not All That Bright correct in stating that the C of E can play some official role in creating or enacting legislation? If this is correct, I don’t see how it can be denied that it is in at least some sense a part of the government. Arguably more than than many government agencies, which though they operate under government orders or regulations, do not have any such role. Of course, anyone can in theory propose an idea for legislation, or provide draft language, or testify about it, whether they are in or out of the government, if they can convince a legislator to advance their ideas.
Okay, small bit of research which I can’t link to as I’m on my phone seems to reveal that Parliament officially retains authority to pass laws regulating the CofE, but in practice delegates most of this authority to the General Synod. Very typically ‘unwritten constitutionally’ British. So in theory, they could force the Church to officiate over SSM, in reality they won’t.
This should help clarify the CofE’s legislative powers. http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/churchlawlegis/legislation.aspx
The best way to look at it is that Parliament has a supervisory/veto role over the church legislation that can become English law, and church legislation that can become English law deals only with internal church matters, not matters of general application. This does not make the CofE an arm of the government.
As far as bishops sitting in the House of Lords goes, it is the nature of unelected upper chambers to have representation from various communities, so as the CofE declines, I expect their traditional number of seats will further decline, just as it has already declined. This does not make the CofE an arm of the government, but certainly does give the CofE representation in Parliament.
26 CofE bishops sit in the House of Lords so do have a direct impact on legislation. However, we have a number of equally weird anomalies like this, such as Scottish MPs getting to vote on legislation that only affects England and Wales. And no, it ain’t right!
Thank you both, that does clarify things. Though I must say I find the idea that any church policies can become enshrined in national law – creepy – even if it is some bullshit like how to sit properly in a pew.
Hey RNATB, here’s an analogy that I think might help. We’re both lawyers who are members of self-governing bodies (or at least I am – I don’t know about your governance). My governing body makes law – most of it only deals with lawyers (rules of professional conduct, etc.), but Parliament takes some of the laws and enacts them so that they apply to everyone, their grandmother, and their dog, (e.g. laws against practicing without a licence). It does not mean that my governing body is an arm of the government. The Attorney General’s ministry/department is an arm of the government, but the Law Society (the self-governing body that regulates lawyers in my area) is not an arm of the government. Where it gets interesting is that if our self-governing body tried to do something against the wishes of the government, we would be swatted like a bug, and have our self-governance revoked.
I understand what you’re saying, and IANALawyer, but I wouldn’t use the term “laws” to describe the Law Society’s rules of conduct. And the Parliament could take advice from the Law Society regarding national legislation, or if it chose to, ignore it entirely.
As a lawyer, you can probably explain to me why I’m wrong. 
I strongly agree.
Something that I find interesting is to compare England and the USA with respect to religious involvement in government. There is a formal relationship between church and state in England, as set out above, whereas there is not in the USA. In the USA there is a far greater influence in politics by religion than there is in England.
I find it the same. I’m an atheist, and I would think atheism would be common and accepted here, but it’s not. And I’ve read that many European countries have some kind of official relationship with a church, and yet the percenntage of atheists in their populations are far higher.
So I’m starting to think that maybe the best way to get rid of the influence of religion in the US is for the government to establish one. 
A few Bishops in the house of lords means they have a small role in LEGISLATING - not that they are an ‘arm of the government’.
That a long, convoluted method of the church choosing candidates for bishops end up with the PM passing the name it comes up with to the Queen to rubber stamp does not mean the church is an ‘arm of the government.’
The phrase is utterly preposterous and no one with even the slightest knowledge of the UK could use it with a straight face. Anyone who gives it head-room has become that much dumber regarding the UK political system.
The Church is perpetually at loggerheads with the government of the day over moral and social issues. The Arch Bishops might be at loggerheads with each other.
In the 80’s the Church was vehement and vigorous in its opposition to the Thatcher Government. Thatcher is the only PM in living memory not to rubber stamp the preferred candidate for a bishopric precisely because said Bishop had opposed her government’s policies and that caused such a stink no one has dared try it since.
It’s not that Church policies get enshrined into law - they don’t get to propose Bills, it’s just that the Bishops who sit in the House of Lords get to have their say (and their vote) on legislation as it passes through Parliament, even if their voting block is small (26 out of 792 peers currently).
So they will get a say on gay marriage when the Bill comes to the House of Lords once it has passed through the House of Commons. They can propose changes to the law and send the Bill back to the House of Commons for discussion but, importantly, Members (Peers) of the House of Lords cannot block it, Bishops included.
This is not quite the same as I understood from Muffin’s post. I got the impression there are some things related to church policies and operations that come from the church that do indeed get made into law. I’m not sure what – maybe elections of bishops? I dunno, are C of E bishops elected?
Fair enough. The government makes big bold laws. Since the devil is in the details, the government also makes a whole whack of regulations that are subsets of these laws. For example, the Highway Traffic Act says that a driver must have a driver’s licence. There are regulations under this law that set out which sort of licences are required for which sort of drivers, and what sort of circumstances can lead to the revocation of a licence.
There are also various law making bodies. For example, let’s say a fine outstanding lawyer who is hustling to make it to a meeting on time just happens to back over a client when parking in front of his office. He will be fined under federal law for dangerous driving, fined under provincial law for speeding, fined under municipal law for improper parking (while trying to hand his bill to the client under his car, he forgot to put money in the parking meter), and fined by the Law Society for bad conduct, following which he will try to deduct the fines as business expenses, and land in yet another couple of jurisctionally different pots of trouble.
With lawyers where I am, the government’s big bold law says that a lawyer must have a lawyer’s licence, and that the lawyers (through their Law Society) shall govern their own profession. The Law Society then makes its own by-laws, but some of them are brought into provincial law either as part of the Law Society Act (the big brush law), or through regulations made under that Act that include loss of licence or fines issued by the Law Society of up to $10,000. Other laws made by the Law Society, such as the rules of conduct, are not brought into provincial law, but even then they work hand in had with those that are brough into provincial law. For example, a violation of the rules of professional conduct (not a provincial law) can result in a big fine (provincial law).
Now when someone has the legal authority to hit me with a $10,000 fine or stop me from earning my living as a lawyer, I think, shit, that’s a law. Formally, it may be an Act of Provincial Parliament, or a Regulation under an Act of Provincial Parliament, or a Regulation of the Law Society, or some combination of them, but ultimately, it’s a law.
Can Parliament ignore the advice of the Law Society? You are bang on right about that one. Parliament can ignore the advice of the Law Society and not pass legislation that the Law Society wants it to pass. But note that Parliament being higher up the legislative chain and not being required to accept the advice of certain lower entities does not mean that there are no lower entities that make laws. Take for example municipalities. Around here they are creatures of the Provincial government, in that the only authority that they have is given to them by the provincial government. As long as they act only within this constraint they quite happily go about their business of passing municipal laws. Now let’s take that concept of entities higher up on the legislative chain being able to ignore the advice of those law making entities lower down the chain, and apply it to the CofE in England, and to various Parliaments of which the Queen forms a part.
The CofE makes two types of laws. One is Cannon Law. It is strictly internal, and is not involved with Parliament. The other is Measures, which is involved with Parliament. It used to be that church law had to be passed by Parliament, but back almost a century ago, Parliament backed away from this and let the CoE make Measures that Parliament would review, and if a given Measure was OK with both Houses of Parliament, then it would recommend that the Queen (the Crown) give it royal assent – making it the law of the land despite it only really covering church matters. Note that this process is not the same as Parliament passing an Act of Parliament that is enacted by the Crown – it is a self-governing body (the CofE) making a law that is enacted by the Crown, with the proviso that Parliament could veto it. If Parliament wanted to, it could pass its own Act of Parliament dealing with CoE matters, but by convention it does not legislate on CofE matters without the consent of the CofE.
Now let’s have a quick look at how Parliaments work. They are usually formed by three entities. 1. A lower house – the House of Commons – that is elected. An upper house – the House of Lords or the Senate – that may or may not be elected depending on which nation. The Crown – presently the Queen. Proposed legislation that is passed by both houses is then handed off to the Queen with the advice that it be enacted into law by her. Here’s the interesting part – the Queen acts on the advice of the two houses of Parliament. By convention, she damn well better do what she is advised to do, for this convention is taken so seriously that it is deemed to be a constitutional convention, but at its root, she has the authority to go against what the houses of Parliament have advised her to do (but of course would create one hell of a mess if she tried to pull such a stunt). She even has the authority to dissolve Parliament entirely. For example, if there is a minority government in the House of Commons that does not have the support of a majority of the House when trying to pass really important bills (e.g. money bills – budgets), the Queen will usually either pick someone else to give a kick at the can in forming a government, or dissolve Parliament and force a new election.
So what it comes down to is that only the Crown utlimately has the authority to make law. The Crown by constitutional convention makes the laws that Parliament advises it to make (the Crown can also do a few things apart from Parliament, such as orders in council – thus the Privy Council, but let’s not get into that). Parliament acts as the filter through which proposed laws must pass before going before the Crown to be made into laws. Usually these laws are created by Parliament. Sometimes these laws are created by self-governing bodies and then passed on by Parliament to the Crown for enactment (e.g. CofE Measures). Sometimes these laws are created by self-governing bodies and given the authority of law under an act of Parliament that is passed on by Parliament to the Crown for enactment (e.g. my self-governing Law Society’s regulations and self-governing municipalities’ by-laws). In short, they’re all laws of one sort or another. Some big and broad, some small and narrow, some affecting all of us, some affecting only a few of us, some arising out of entities based on geography, some arising out of entities based on vocation, but they all hold the authority of law originating out of the Crown.