Turnberry is a beautiful hotel. Built as ‘the Station Hotel’ in 1906, it offered such luxuries as hot and cold running water and saltwater plunge baths along with central heating and the then newfangled electric lighting, and it’s long been regarded as one of the world’s top golf and resort experiences.

I’ve conducted weddings there in the past, but I have decided I won’t do so again as long as it remains under its current ownership, and I hope you will understand why…

It took a long time for humanists to win the right to conduct legal marriage in Scotland, and we won that right because we have certain distinctive beliefs.

As it says in The Amsterdam Declaration, humanists “affirm the worth and dignity of the individual and the right of every human to the greatest possible freedom and fullest possible development compatible with the rights of others. To these ends we support peace, democracy, the rule of law, and universal legal human rights.”

“We reject all forms of racism and prejudice and the injustices that arise from them. We seek instead to promote the flourishing and fellowship of humanity in all its diversity and individuality.”

The decisions and actions of the President of the United States since he took office have been so widely denounced that I don’t need to repeat them here, but Audrey Kingstrom’s article in The Humanist Magazine puts them in a nutshell; “the re-election of Donald Trump as president seems like a resounding rejection of humanist values… Core humanist values of widespread human flourishing, individual dignity and autonomy, freedom of belief, and truth-telling are being abandoned.”

I very much doubt that anyone who wants to have a humanist wedding would now choose to get married at Turnberry, but if you are thinking about, I hope you’ll take a moment to think about the values you choose to support.

PS If you need any help finding an alternative wedding venue, please take a moment to check out my favourites here. You’ll also find some wonderful photographers, videographers musicians and wedding planners listed there too.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a very happy wedding day when it comes!