On the road to disestablishment

There’s an inevitability about the Times’s big splash (£) this morning: Gay Marriage Plan Could Divorce Church From State. The Church of England’s historic role as ‘religious registrar’ for the State would have to be severed, we are told, if government plans to legalise gay marriage go ahead. That would not, apparently, mean ‘total dis-establishment … but it would be a significant step in that direction.’ The CofE, for all its liberalism, says it will not support a legal attempt to redefine ‘the objective distinctiveness of men and women.’
 
So that — if this report is to be believed — is that. Unless the government relents or the Anglican Communion decides that God does intend marriage to be a union of man and man, the Church of England will move away from its position as the established church of this country. England will no longer be officially Christian. And maybe that’s as it should be.