C of E bishop calls for civil partnership blessings

A senior Church of England bishop has called for the established church to give “the blessing of God” to civil partnerships.

Officially the Church of England says clergy should not bless same-sex couples who are in civil partnerships.

But the Bishop of Liverpool has said: “If the Church now recognises Civil Partnerships to be a just response to the needs of gay people then surely the Church now has to ask the question whether or not it can deny the blessing of God to that which is just.”

Blessing

The Rt Revd James Jones stopped short of backing same-sex marriage, commenting: “I believe that there is a difference between heterosexual union and same gender intimacy and that it is appropriate to maintain that difference in the language we use.”

The Rt Revd Jones made the comments in his final presidential address to the Diocese of Liverpool’s Synod before he retires in August.

In 2005 a House of Bishops statement affirmed that “clergy of the Church of England should not provide services of blessing for those who register a civil partnership”.

Discrimination

In 2011 the Government allowed civil partnership ceremonies to be conducted on religious premises.

Speaking about the proposal in 2010, the then Bishop of Winchester, Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, commented: “I believe that it will open, not the Church of England, but individual clergy, to charges of discrimination if they solemnise marriages as they all do, but refuse to host civil partnership signings in their churches.”

And Edward Leigh, a senior Tory MP, said in 2011: “When Civil Partnerships were brought in we were assured that they were not marriage.

Broken

“This pledge has now been broken. A marriage is a union between a man and a woman making a sincere attempt to stay together for life with a view to raising children.

“Civil Partnerships, by definition, cannot be this. The whole point of banning Civil Partnerships in a place of worship was to make clear that they were not marriages. This distinction will now be lost.”