Some Church of England Clergy Push Gay Equality

As the Church of England prepares for its General Synod meeting, which begins Monday, some clergy members are calling for greater acceptance of LGBT people within the denomination.

The denomination refuses to allow civil partnerships, a marriage-like union available to same-sex couples in the U.K., to be performed in its churches, and it allows clergy to be in civil partnerships but requires them to be celibate.

An open letter signed by more than 100 London priests who say clergy should be allowed to perform civil partnerships in their churches if they so desire was published Thursday in London's Times, Pink News reports. "This should be a matter for the individual conscience," they wrote, as is the decision on whether to perform marriages for divorced people. The bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, responded by saying there are more pressing issues for the church to deal with, according to London's Guardian.

Meanwhile, in an interview with BBC, the bishop of Salisbury said the church is failing gay couples. While marriage has traditionally been a male-female union, the Right Reverend Nicholas Holtam said, "What has happened now is that we have begun to see in a way, which is not there in the Bible, that there are people in same-sex relationships who are living faithfully and lovingly for life. ... We have had the experience of civil partnerships for six years now and we need to review where we are." He is "the most senior cleric to have spoken favourably about gay relationships," the Guardian reports.

U.K. prime minister David Cameron is pushing for a law to replace civil partnerships with marriage. Indicating the divisions in the Church of England, the archbishop of York recently said Cameron would be acting "like a dictator" in urging the change. Supporters of gay equality responded by protesting at his cathedral.

The four-day synod meeting will likely have a greater focus on women clergy than gay-related issues, however, the Guardian reports. The church is finalizing a move to allow women to be ordained as bishops, and conservatives want an exemption to allow congregations "to ignore the authority of a female bishop and choose to be led by a male one instead," the paper notes.