Pic:Facebook
Listen to 2UE interview
2UE reports…
“Much discussion today about the marriage between Fred Nile and Silvana Nero, with the bride wearing the white wedding dress. Is it alright to wear white the second or third time around when you are getting married?”
From http://www.2ue.com.au/blogs/2ue-blog/is-white-ok-for-a-second-wedding/20131216-2zgee.html
The Sydney Morning Herald reports…
“If the headlines marking their wedding were to say, simply, ”Man marries woman,” it might please the Reverend Fred Nile and his bride Silvana Nero, and it might please their Lord.
The couple were perhaps less pleased when, across the road from their nuptials on Sunday, a small group staged a protest ceremony for which the headline might read: ”Man marries man-in-drag.”
In this mock marriage, bottle blond Brae Michaels married bottle blonde Viva la Bang. She was radiant in a traditional white gown, if not as dazzling as Nile’s younger bride, 55-year-old Nero, who wore an embroidered white dress.
Nile, the 79-year-old groom and Christian Democrat MP, came with subtle blond streaks in his hair. Only last month he declared he would celebrate the ”victory” of his stand against gay marriage – and his part in the defeat of a bill in the NSW upper house that might have allowed it – with his own wedding.
He welled up with tears as Nero approached the altar of St Thomas’ Anglican Church in North Sydney, where guests included O’Farrell government ministers Mike Baird, Greg Smith and Duncan Gay and Labor’s Luke Foley and Walt Secord, while the best man was upper house Liberal MP David Clarke.
The bridal procession had been preceded by the blowing of the shofar, biblical instruments honed from the horns of rams or other kosher animals. The protesters refrained, for now, from using their loudhailer. It would have been of no use against the crescendo of organ, trumpets, bagpipes, drums, the South Pacific Island Choir and rousing renditions of Shania Twain and Michael Buble songs that provided the soundtrack to Nile’s second wedding.
The celebrant Reverend Simon Manchester said it was important to Nile to have his family’s support. Two of his sons, David and Mark, did attend. But another son Steve and daughter Sharon chose not to.
In June, one of Nile’s children revealed they were ”hurt and angry” he was remarrying so soon after his 53-year marriage to Elaine ended with her death from cancer in October 2011. Four months later, Nile saw Nero at a Christian Democratic Party meeting.
It was ”love at first sight”, he said then. He acknowledged ”friction” with his children but said Elaine had wanted him to find a new wife. And he said Nero did not want to take their mother’s place and would retain her surname.
”She will not become the new Mrs Nile,” he said, and gushed about her ”beautiful legs” and how ”ravishing” she looked for their first date at a Monarchist League lunch.
On Sunday, the celebrant noted Nelson Mandela remarried in his 80s, making Nile a ”youngster in his 70s”. After exchanging vows, the youngster kissed his bride with such prolonged enthusiasm that Nero used a hanky to remove the lipstick smudge on his lips.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott sent them a message: ”Marriage is about walking the same path together. It is a profound, rich and fulfilling journey that should draw out the better angels of our nature.”
Viva la Bang would agree. She said Nile’s ”point of being against gay marriage is because the Bible says it’s between a man and a woman for the means of procreation”.
”Yet here’s a man, 70-something years old, marrying a woman of 55. Are they really going to procreate? So if they can get married, why can’t we?”
As the wedding party emerged, the protesters resorted to the loudhailer: ”Divorce the church from the state/Love is equal, don’t preach hate.” A woman returned fire with blasts from the shofar.
”I feel like going over there to thump one of them,” a wedding guest said. A man wearing a magenta jacket that would have blended just as well on the other side of the street, said: ”Stupid people. It’s a federal issue, not state. And it’s his wedding day … They’re dicks.”
Flashback
Mark 10:12 “And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
From http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10%3A10-12&version=NIV
Group Sects 
Don’t worry, Freddy boy won’t be reading this. Probably too busy.
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RE: “Question: “What is the exception clause?”
So one spouses catches his/her spouse looking at porn, are they entitled to go an remarry?
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Ah Mr “Do as I say and not as I do” Fred Nile. I am not surprised at this at all and hope he finds peace and love.
It is after all up to Fred and Silvana to determine if its right.
For his children, Fred is simply reaping what he sowed (sow – marry quickly, reap – opposition). Fred should not try to control (“has a plan” dear oh dear) his adult children, but rather understand they make decisions by themselves and also understand that the best remedy is time. Does his plan involved what he wanted re-legislated for others in order to control their feelings?
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Oh goody a slippery slope. My favourite ride.
So it’s no one’s business to know how Mrs Nile (Mark 2)’s marriage ended.
But it would be everyone’s business if she was lesbian or bi?
Btw I like women ministers.
Mainly those easy on the eye.
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@ Bones (as you travel even further down the slippery slope) – yes, biblically it is my business to know if my minister is gay. He would no longer qualify to BE a minister, let alone mine.
Unless of course he’s a liberal Lutheran, then anything goes….. but then I’m not a liberal Lutheran.
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/02/evangelical-lutheran-church-america-elects-first-native-american-bishop-149669
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Is it your business to know if your minister is gay?
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Does anyone know the particular circumstances for her marriage breakdown? Is it her responsibility to share that information? Is it our business to know?
I would have more concerns about her unbiblical role as a woman teaching (she’s a former Pentecostal church minister), in the pulpit (if she’s addressing men)!
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Question: “What is the exception clause?”
Answer: The “exception clause” is Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 “except for marital unfaithfulness.” It gives an “exception” for remarriage after a divorce being considered adultery. Matthew 5:32 reads, “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” Similarly, Matthew 19:9 reads, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” So, what precisely is “marital unfaithfulness,” and why is it an exception to Jesus’ statement that remarriage after a divorce is adultery?
The meaning of Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 is clear. If a person gets a divorce and then remarries, it is considered adultery unless the exception clause is in effect. The phrase “marital unfaithfulness” is a translation of the Greek word porneia, the word from which we get our modern word “pornography.” The essential meaning of porneia is “sexual perversion.” In Greek literature around the same time as the New Testament, porneia was used to refer to adultery, fornication, prostitution, incest, and idolatry. It is used 25 times in the New Testament, most often translated “fornication.”
The meaning of porneia in the New Testament seems to be the general concept of sexual perversion. Other Greek words are used to refer to specific forms of sexual perversion, such as adultery. With this meaning in mind, according to the exception clause, any participation in sexual perversion/misconduct is an exception to Jesus’ statement that remarriage after a divorce is adultery. If one spouse commits adultery, or any act of sexual perversion, and a divorce results, the “innocent” spouse is free to remarry without it being considered adulterous.
Please understand, though, that the exception clause is not a command for divorce and/or remarriage. Jesus is not saying that if marital unfaithfulness occurs a couple should divorce. Jesus is not saying that if a divorce occurs due to marital unfaithfulness, the innocent spouse should remarry. At most, Jesus is giving allowance for divorce and remarriage to occur. In no sense is Jesus declaring divorce and remarriage to be the best or only option. Repentance, forgiveness, counseling, and restoration are God’s desire for marriages damaged by unfaithfulness. God can and will heal any marriage in which both spouses are committed to Him and willing to follow His Word.
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Sorry roscoe74, but people like Nile who quote the bible and ignore it’s historical and social setting can’t have it both ways. There is NO out in the NT for remarriage of divorcees – in one text Jesus says that you can divorce (not remarry) on the basis of adultery – i.e. sexual unfaithfulness, nothing else. Paul’s attack on gays in Romans explicitly refers to men having sex with men as an act of defiance against God – this hardly describes modern same sex relationships, but people get vilified andeven sacked for being gay. Nile voted to have people jailed for it. He can’t `interpret scripture when he likes and take it literally when he doesn’t. The man is a hypocrite.
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I’m sure Fred Nile and his fiance are aware of the Biblical ethics of this situation and he doesn’t need the armchair experts who frequent this blog to adjudicate for him.
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Fred Nile has spent years quoting hateful `verses’ against gay people, but now choses to ignore the verses that he doesn’t like. Just read 1 Cor 7.10 and 11. There is no ambiguity here – `if a woman separate from her husband let her remain UNMARRIED, or be reconciled with her husband’. No `if or buts’. Personally I am happy when someone who has gone through a divorce finds another partner, but Nile has used to bible as brick to bash people with, but now ignores it when it doesn’t suit him. He is a horrible man..
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good on them – all the best
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It’s all well and good to talk about rights, but what about responsibilities?
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I think it is beautiful that they have found love and are getting married. I equally find it reprehensable that Fred Nile would deny that same privilage and right to gay couples
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It’s your blog and you can aggregate whatever content you like, but be prepared to have your views challenged sometimes.
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Silvana can go all Elizabeth Taylor on us as far as I care..
All I’m saying is the Bible is Fred Nile’s final authority – except for Mark 10:12.
I just find it amusing that Fred is basically using the pro-gay argument that love trumps an ancient bible teaching.
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Do you know Gene Robinson? His ex wife would be free to remarry if she so wished.
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I think you’re being facetious here, and you just want to make Fred Nile look bad. Besides, there are Biblical grounds in which divorced people are permitted to remarry. If one spouse was unfaithful, or left their marriage partner for another man or woman, or arguably being abusive constitutes breaking the Biblical command for husbands and wives to love and submit to each other. This report doesn’t say anything about the reasons for Ms Nero’s divorce.
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