The Church of England is in a deep organisational crisis over the status of gay men and their role in the church. The crisis is not likely to be solved in the immediate future because the argument has become a totem in the struggle between factions of the church which have very different ideas over human behaviour.
On the one hand a significant number of Anglicans believe that God disapproves of the practice of homosexual sex, according to them the alleged destruction of the city of Soddom by God “proves” their analysis correct. Others believe that it would be foolish to deny talented people a role in the church because of their sexuality.
I am not a member of the Church of England nor am I able to agree with much of the Anglican creed (though I suspect many Anglicans are in the same boat on the latter) and so do not normally feel entitled to comment on Church affairs so I will leave it to this man to make the obvious point that there seems to be an unhealthy obsession with sex in religious cults both large and small.
The Anglican Church (of which the Scottish Episcopalians are part) is not like the Roman Catholic Church which denies it’s clergy the right to marry but it is still unhealthily obsessed with sex. It would seem obvious to me that the only way to prevent people being obsessed with sex and thereby being at risk of having their sexuality twisted is to stop preventing people having sex with partners of their own choice. Surely it would be better to have a vicar who lived with his boyfriend than a vicar who was a danger to the choir ? That might sound trite but the peadophile priest scandals in Ireland and the numerous cases of vicars in the UK being defrocked because their sexual frustration led them to interfere with vulnerable members of their congregation should be adequate warning of the dangers of trying to interfere with people’s sexuality.
