Hmmm...and I thought the sex part was a core part of marriage.  From one
aberration to another....

MLW+

-----Original Message-----
From: chasrscott@... [mailto:chasrscott@...] 
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 3:27 PM
To: faithandlife@...
Subject: [FaithandLife] at least I know I'm free


Brothers+

In my opinion Lee Greenwood's talent as a musician were over rated.

However, I gained a new appreciation for the line, "at least I know I'm
free" after reading the article below.  Our bishops should be grateful that
no Queen Mum, His Majesty or any other government official can influence
their decisions in regard to selecting priests.

What a hoot!  No comic writer can make this stuff up.

Charles+
---------------------------------------------------------

Church to let gay clergy 'marry' but they must stay celibate 

by Christopher Morgan
The Sunday Times

LONDON (5/29/2005)--HOMOSEXUAL priests in the Church of England will be
allowed to "marry" their boyfriends under a proposal drawn up by senior
bishops, led by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The decision ensures that gay and lesbian clergy who wish to register
relationships under the new "civil partnerships" law - giving them many of
the tax and inheritance advantages of married couples - will not lose their
licences to be priests.

They will, however, have to give an assurance to their diocesan bishop that
they will abstain from sex. The bishops are trying to uphold the church
doctrine of forbidding clergy from sex except in a full marriage. They
accept, however, that the new law leaves them little choice but to accept
the right of gay clergy to have civil partners.

The decision is likely to reopen the row over homosexuality that has split
the worldwide Anglican communion. It may also overshadow an international
meeting of senior bishops next month designed to heal rifts between liberals
and conservatives over the issue.

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement estimates that within five years
1,500 homosexual Anglican clergy will have registered under the new law,
which comes into force on December 5.

The Church of England proposal is contained in a draft Pastoral Statement on
Civil Partnerships, drawn up by Graham James, the Bishop of Norwich. It was
discussed at length and provisionally agreed at a meeting last week at a
hotel in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire.

A final draft with some amendments will be produced for approval by the
House of Bishops, the upper house of the church's General Synod.

Under the proposal, a priest intending to register a civil partnership would
inform his or her bishop in a face-to-face meeting. The priest would then
give an undertaking to uphold the teaching of the Church of England,
outlined in the 1991 document Issues in Human Sexuality. This paper
prohibits sex for gay clergy.

Although no sanctions are included in the new proposal, it is expected that
a breach of the rules may lead to disciplinary action or the possible
suspension of clergy.

Some bishops, however, are uncomfortable about subjecting their priests to
the proposed interviews.

One said this weekend: "We all have clergy in gay partnerships in our
dioceses and there is a genuine reluctance on the part of a number of us to
make their lives more difficult."

Some clergy in other churches have already made their intentions public.
Last week, it emerged that Debbie Gaston, a lesbian minister from Brighton,
and Elaine Cook, her girlfriend of 16 years, intend to register a civil
partnership. The couple, originally Baptists, now belong to the Metropolitan
Community Church, whose members are largely gay and transsexual.

The bishops have also agreed to a government request to change
ecclesiastical law to favour civil partners. A change to the Pluralities Act
of 1838, for example, will enable gay partners to occupy vicarages for up to
two months after the death of a priest.

The Anglican Consultative Council is meeting in Nottingham on June 21 to try
to heal the rift caused by the American church's decision in 2003 to ordain
the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. It led 22 Anglican
provinces, mainly in Africa and Asia, to break off relations with the
American church.

The most entrenched conservatives include Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria,
who has called homosexuality an "aberration unknown even in animal
relationships".

Williams, who was enthroned as archbishop in 2003, has been dogged by the
issue of homosexuality. He withdrew his initial support for the appointment
of Jeffrey John, a gay priest, as Bishop of Reading after the furious
reaction of conservatives and evangelicals and angered gay rights activists.

Additional reporting: Tak-Sang Li 

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