Leading Article: Mr Tatchell's latest outrage

There can be few less attractive characters in British public life than the Outrage campaigner Peter Tatchell. He pursues his victims with sanctimonious fanaticism which is difficult to credit. He wrote on 30 December to the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev David Hope: "Although Outrage has been passed a lot of detailed information about your personal life, which would have enabled us confidently to name you at the Synod on 30 November, we chose not to do so ... we believe that you are or can be a person of honesty and courage. You have the potential to play a very special role both morally and historically. It is our sincere hope that you will find the inner strength and conviction to realise the importance of voluntarily [These, astonishingly, are his own italics] coming out as gay." This looks very much like blackmail, as does his remark on Radio 4 yesterday: "We know a lot about David Hope, not all of which he has so far revealed."

Conversely, the bishop makes a more sympathetic, even courageous figure as he turns to defy his pursuer. No one has suggested that he is personally homophobic: on the contrary even Mr Tatchell's letter praises him for showing private kindness and understanding to the gay clergy of his diocese. Dr Hope's statement that he is "ambiguous in terms of [his] own sexuality" though perfectly happy to be a single celibate will strike some as puzzling, although in the context of the Christian church the notion of priestly celibacy is scarcely without pedigree.

Dr Hope's predicament is that he has been forced into the limelight at a time when the Church of England is in a state of confusion about issues of sexual morality. His argument yesterday that individual sexuality is an essentially private matter, although fine as a statement of liberal principle, hardly stands scrutiny inside a church which requires of its adherents public commitments to standards of sexual morality. The problem is that contemporary Christianity has no clear public message on sexuality, precisely because Christians are so deeply confused and divided on the issue.

The fact that the church can be criticised in general for its contortions on the issue of homosexuality among its clergy does not, however, provide any kind of justification for the behaviour of Outrage. Members of the gay community ought to be particularly sensitive to the undesirability of exposing individuals to humiliation at the hands of a prurient public. Peter Tatchell's witch hunt is a vile tactic which can only do serious long-term damage to the cause he claims to represent.