The former Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd Dr John Baker, has called for gay marriages to be sanctioned by the Church of England. The Bishop was giving a lecture entitled:"Homosexuality and Christian ethics - a new way forward" at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London. The Bishop chaired the group which produced - Issues in Human Sexuality - the Church of England report in 1991 which reinforced the celibacy rule for gay clergy. The Bishop now feels "obliged to dissent from that judgment."

"I cannot see that married heterosexual clergy have a right to deny their homosexual brothers and sisters the potential spiritual blessing of a sexual relationship when they themselves enjoy that blessing. A public Christian act should not be refused, if desired, because to do so would be to fall back into the old condemnation of such relationships on principle," he said.

"If homosexuality is simply a fact about themselves which many people have to live with, and our moral duty as Christians is to make use of it in ways that conduce to spiritual good and not to evil, them the obvious duty of a priest is to give example and guidance in using it well."

The bishop also spoke about the possibility of a homosexual divorce:"But if you begin by marking something publicly, do you not have to have some public marker if, sadly, it ends? What should Christians say about homosexual divorce? If we choose to say nothing, is that taking the spiritual dimension of the relationship seriously," he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd George Carey, said of the lecture:"Bishop John Baker's conclusions suggest a very significant departure from the Church's current mind and discipline as set out in the General Synod Resolution of 1987 and the 1991 House of Bishop's Statement Issues in Human Sexuality. There is no question of any sudden change in the Church's official position regarding homosexual practice, and Bishop Baker will be well aware that very many of his colleagues and friends, including myself, will disagree with him about the way forward he proposes. Nevertheless, his lecture deserves to be read with respect and care as a contribution to continuing debate. The House of Bishops (Church of England) has asked the group chaired by the Bishop of Oxford to take a special interest in theological contributions of this kind and General Synod will return to the subject in due course."