Church of England's Homosexual 'Marriage' Compromise Has Theologian Concerned
By Jim Brown
August 3, 2005

(AgapePress) - While the Episcopal Church USA continues to affirm and bless homosexual relationships, the Church of England is now allowing homosexual clergy to marry if they promise to abstain from sex.

Last week the Church of England's House of Bishops issued a statement approving "sexless marriage" for homosexual clergy. The church says it will treat these marriages as civil partnerships without giving them the status of marital relationships. However, conservative Anglican theologian Dr. Kendall Harmon fears the Episcopal Church and other liberal Anglicans will use the policy to further their cause.

Harmon, who serves as Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina, feels the Church of England's new stance has created a bizarre and awkward situation that is poised to foster deception. "First of all, on the clergy side," he says, "people who are in partnerships that are in fact sexual partnerships as well as personal partnerships are not necessarily going to have strong incentive to tell the bishop that they are, in fact, in a sexual partnership because, if they do, they are potentially subject to discipline."

The rest