THE MARRIAGE LAWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3601, 13 October 1920, Page 6

THE MARRIAGE LAWS.

• DISCUSSED BY BAPTIST UNION. STRONG PROTEST MADE, AUCKLAND, Oct. 11. Problems connected with the No ! Temere debate came under review at the Baptist Conference, this morning. In common with all churches, the Baptist Church is resolute to conserve religious liberty, and will countenance no attempt to suppress the rights of any church to • express its„ own convictions in regard to conditions of valid marriages. The Baptist Church recognises that in the Ne Temere decree there is direct invasion of the rights of the Protestant party in mixed marriages The following resolution was unanimously adopted by the Conference: The Baptist Union of New Zealand renews the protest raised in 1898 by the Protest-

ant churches against the promulgation of the Ne Temere decree by the

Roma-n Catholic Church. The Union believes that the decree raises so j many practical inequalities and injus- ' tices in regard to mixed marriages j that the Government would be justi- | fled in either requiring withdrawal of

the decree (as in Germany) or in

erecting such legislative barriers as will adequately protect the Protestant party in mixed marriages." This was followed by a farther resolution expressing the feeling of the conference in regard to the services rendered to the community by the Rev. Howard Elliott in the evidence tendered by him to the committee' of the I Legislative Council. j