UPROAR IN CHURCH.

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 104, 27 January 1931, Page 3

UPROAR IN CHURCH.

Judge Lindsey in Trouble SHOUTED AT BISHOP “You have falsely misrepresented me,” shouted Mr. Ben B. Lindsey, a former judge and a prominent champion of companionate marriage, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as Dr. Manning, the Bishop of New York, concluded a sermon in which he denounced Mr. Lindsey’s views as “unchristian and unclean.” The cathedral was packed with 3500 people, who rose as one body with shouts of “Throw him out!” and “Kick him out!” and high above the turmoil rose the shrill voice of a woman, crying “He should be lynched !” “In the name of justice I ask for five minutes to answer your unfair attack,” Mr. Lindsey shouted to the bishop, towering above him, but Dr. Manning refused to be drawn, and ignored the passionate little man.

Mr. Lindsey was taken to a police station and served with a summons for disorderly conduct. The affair is a climax to the trouble between Dr. Manning and Mr. Lindsey which flamed out when the New York Churchmen's Association agreed to hear Mr. Lindsey's views on companionate marIn his address Mr. Lindsey said: “We look to liberal clergy to save the institution of marriage. If it is not saved from reactionary clergy, it will be destroyed. Most clergymen are for everything I stand for, but they do not dare to say so. “The greatest difficulty is that they think I plead for free love, but I do not. I think it is dangerous for women. But I am legalising and scientifically directing the customs of modern marriage. The majority of all married couples in all churches practice companionate sex relationships of lawful marriage—a relationship that has no intention of begetting children. This is deliberately avoided by artificial means. “I want to remove the bootlegging atmosphere from marriage, divorce, and sex. I nsk that the companionate marriage relationship be recognised as legal and moral by Church and State.”