George Carey...

I’ve just finished a slim book by George Carey (Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002), about the way that Christian faith has been marginalised - privately, publicly - in recent years. He bewails the fact that faith is in retreat, yet at no point does he question the wisdom of believing things which are palpably untrue. In particular he wants Christians to be able to register their disapproval of homosexuality, without coming up against human rights legislation or ending up in court. “Christians, like everybody else, believe that sexual minorities are equal but they do not believe that all expressions of sexuality are equally acceptable. This, of course, is a distinction which homosexuals, in particular, cannot accept. There is no possible way of squaring this circle”.

I don’t know why the Church of England is so fixated with homosexuality. I know what the Bible says on the subject, just as I know what the Bible says about slavery (nowhere is it prohibited) and adultery, which, 2,000 years ago, was a capital offense. The church no longer sanctions slavery, and adulterous women are no longer stoned to death, on their father’s doorstep, by the men of the town. But homosexuality, in the eyes of many Christians, is still the biblical “abomination”. I don’t know why sex acts between consenting adults are the business of the church, or anyone else. Churchmen should get out of other people’s bedrooms… and stay out...