Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP who is in a civil partnership, said: “It is progress for them to stop asking the celibacy question but it still leaves the Church of England policy based essentially on dishonesty and encouraging its clergy to lie.”
He also suggested the church’s apparent reluctance to usher in full equality meant it could be time for parliament to intervene, as it did when the synod initially refused to allow women to become bishops in 2012.
Bradshaw, a member of parliament’s ecclesiastical committee, said: “There is a growing sense that if the church can’t sort this out for themselves, then parliament may have to do it for them.”
Frank Field, a fellow Labour member of the committee, urged the bishops to be “brave” and usher in equality, with a conscience clause for those clergy who feel they cannot marry gay people.
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([Sunday London] Times) "Church to draw veil over sex lives of gay clergy"
Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP who is in a civil partnership, said: “It is progress for them to stop asking the celibacy question but it still leaves the Church of England policy based essentially on dishonesty and encouraging its clergy to lie.”
He also suggested the church’s apparent reluctance to usher in full equality meant it could be time for parliament to intervene, as it did when the synod initially refused to allow women to become bishops in 2012.
Bradshaw, a member of parliament’s ecclesiastical committee, said: “There is a growing sense that if the church can’t sort this out for themselves, then parliament may have to do it for them.”
Frank Field, a fellow Labour member of the committee, urged the bishops to be “brave” and usher in equality, with a conscience clause for those clergy who feel they cannot marry gay people.
Read it all (requires subscription).