Hardline bishops ban gay priests

[06/08/98 -  - Web - http://www.independent.co.uk/]

Anglican bishops yesterday voted to adopt a hardline stance on homosexuality after a highly-charged debate at a conference in Canterbury. 
The 750 bishops from 38 provinces across the world declared homosexual relationships "incompatible" with the Bible and upheld the ban on the ordination of gay priests and the blessing of same-sex marriages. 

The move will dismay gay rights activists and liberal bishops who hoped gay marriages and practising homosexual priests would be allowed. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, endorsed the decision of the conference and insisted there was "no room for any sexual activity outside matrimony". 

Outside the conference hall Bishop John Schofield, from California, said that the vote should spell the end of the ordination of gay priests. He added: "If they continue they do so in contradiction to the voice of the Anglican community and of the scripture. 

"There is no more authoritative body than the worldwide Anglican Communion that has met here this afternoon. If a small province were to fly in the face of that it would put itself on the very edge of a split." 

The Lambeth Conference is held only every 10 years and has no legal binding on bishops but is seen as a powerful influence of opinion on the church. 

A sub-committee of bishops had been discussing the issue for the first two weeks of the three-week conference and had put forward a "compromise" resolution that many conservatives felt was "too wishy washy". 

But liberals were concerned at the insistence that the blessing of gay marriages and the ordaining of gay priests was not acceptable and that celibacy was the only option for homosexuals. 

During a passionate two-hour debate bishops added five amendments to the original resolution, hardening the stance on gay issues. They voted to add a line saying the conference rejected "homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". The original motion said "chastity" was right for those outside marriage, which pleased reformers who thought it softened the previous line of celibacy. 

But bishops amended "chastity" to "abstinence" and replaced a line condemning homophobia with a sentence condemning "the irrational fear of homosexuals". 

The only concession to the liberals was a line by the Bishop of Wolverhampton, Michael Bourke, which called on the church to "commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual people".