Gay Anglican ministers defy Church of England ban on same-sex marriage

Signatories to an open letter have called on church leaders to allow ministers to bless LGBT unions

Clergy were forbidden from entering into or officiating same-sex marriages when they were legalised in 2014 (AFP/Getty Images)

A group of Anglican clergy will reveal they have married their same-sex partners despite a ban issued by church leaders.

A dozen Church of England ministers are to sign an open letter urging the General Synod to allow clergy to bless their gay and lesbian parishioners’ marriages when it meets again in February next year.

Half of the signatories will say they are in a same-sex marriage themselves, despite being forbidden by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Justin Welby and John Sentamu.

Archbishop Welby and Archbishop Sentamu made the decision following the legalisation of same-sex marriage in England and Wales in March 2014.

They ruled clergy could not enter into same-sex marriages and people already in these marriages could not be ordained.

Despite this, north London vicar Andrew Foreshew-Cain married his partner Stephen in June 2014 and was not removed from his post.

But Nottingham Canon Jeremy Pemberton sued for unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal after the Church of England withdrew his right to officiate as a priest after he got married in April 2014 - costing him his job at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS trust.

Reverend Foreshew-Cain told the Guardian: “Our marriages are legal, celebrated and widely accepted in society.

“Yet the Church of England behaves as if they are somehow dirty and imposes penalties on clergy and refuses to acknowledge the marriages of those who wish to make lifelong faithful commitments.”

“This has to stop and the element of fear and hypocrisy around our marriages has to end.”

He called on the church to “acknowledge the new reality of how Christians think” and said parishes who want to celebrate LGBT relationships should be free to do so.

He insisted they were not calling for the removal of the quadruple lock - a mechanism in the Same-Sex Marriage Act which means churches are not forced to officiate weddings - as he acknowledged the church was not ready yet.

A Church of England spokesman declined to comment but told the Guardian they had been conducting “shared conversations” with over 1,000 members of the church which will “inform the way the church conducts whatever further formal discussions take place in the future”.

But Andrea Williams, the chief executive of pressure group Christian Concern, told The Sunday Times she believed the letter was an attempt to “undermine the authority of the teaching of the church”.