Church Leaders Perform Politically Correct Song and Dance

Insight on the News, Sept 17, 2001 by Stephen Goode

For the people's prize for the most mindless politically correct act of the summer goes to Church of England vicar Donald Allister and Martyn Barrow, musical director at Cheadle Parish Church in northern England. Their offense? They refused the singing of two hymns requested by a couple who wanted to get married at Cheadle. The priest and the musical director said they wouldn't allow Victoria Williams, 26, and her fiance Smart Turton, 27, to have their favorite songs of praise, "I Vow To Thee My Country" and "Jerusalem," sung at their nuptials because the songs were "too nationalistic."

"Jerusalem" from a poem written by William Blake, includes the verses "And was the Holy Lamb of God/ On England's pleasant pastures seen?" and "And did the Countenance Divine/ Shine forth upon our clouded hills?" Allister even said that "Jerusalem" wasn't about God and therefore was not a good selection for a church wedding.

"I Vow To Thee My Country," a favorite of the late Princess Diana (and used in her wedding to the Prince of Wales), was written by a British diplomat during World War II to lament the terrible loss of life in that war.

Not surprisingly, according to a dispatch from Reuters, the young couple decided to get married at another church -- one that approved of the hymns they had chosen and wasn't quite so politically correct.