When will the CofE have an honest debate about homosexuality?

At the Church of England’s General Synod on Wednesday morning, I had a good view of the sign-language person. In a bored moment (sorry for the puerility), I tried to see what the sign for ‘sex’ was. I failed to discover this, but happened to be watching him while an evangelical spoke of progressive teaching leading people to hell. He made a pleasing little one-handed goat-horn sign.

The whole debate could have been summed up in a couple of gestures. Maybe a sad face and heart sign, for the progressives’ tireless emphasis on the pain and exclusion of homosexuals, and the need for loving acceptance. For the evangelicals, maybe a clenched-fist hold-fast sign, plus a Bible, followed by the old goat-horns.

I’m a liberal, but the rhetoric of my fellow liberals did not often fill me with theological delight. Speaker after speaker, some of whom sported brightly dyed hair, expressed indignation that reform was taking so long, that gay people were still cruelly disadvantaged.