Gay clergy row heart of Church meet

[17/07/98 - Hazel Southam - Web - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/results.html?in_text=gay+lambeth&in_button=17]

The world's largest meeting of Anglican church leaders for 10 years is set to be dominated by rows over homosexuals and women priests.

The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops from all over the world could degenerate into a clash over homosexual and lesbian clergy, with further damaging blows inflicted by the accompanying controversy over women priests.

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, has dismissed the homosexual debate as "a minority and colonial issue", while the general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Rev Richard Kirker, is challenging the Church to "come out" over the issue of the many thousands of homosexuals in its ranks.

Nearly 800 bishops are due to converge on Canterbury for the conference, costing £2.2 million, to decide the direction of the Church's politics for the Millennium.

On the agenda are international debt, economic justice, euthanasia, the environment and homosexuality, but the one likely to catch the headlines is the gay issue and lobby groups are on red alert.

As the conference opens tomorrow the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement will meet in London to send an open letter to the bishops asking them to admit the Church "is ordaining gay clergy." The Church of England is not meant to recruit practising homosexuals, but the general secretary of the LGCM, the Rev Richard Kirker claims: "There are many thousands of gay priests in Britain. Everybody knows what is going on." 

He added that there was "a high level of intolerance directed at gay clergy" and said he wanted the Lambeth Conference to launch an international commission to study the implications and emergence of gay and lesbian priests.

Rev Kirker has high-profile backing from South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Bishop Jack Spong, an American well-known for his pro-homosexual views. But, his appeal to the Church to come out over homosexual clergy, is likely to cause a furore at the conference. 

The Bishop of Winchester, who is part of a committee which debates homosexuality in the Church, said the subject should be kept in perspective as "a minority, colonial issue".

Bishop Scott-Joynt added: "I believe that the gender issue the Lambeth Conference really faces is about heterosexual sexual relations.

"In Africa, where HIV/Aids is a heterosexually transmitted disease, it is manifest that the Church has failed to win the rising generation's agreement on sexual behaviour." He added that the key issues for the conference were "international debt, human rights, euthanasia and economic justice." 

The three-week conference looks set to be full of contentious issues, including the ordination of women bishops - 11 women bishops will be there - and whether or not Christians can have several husbands or wives.