As the Civil Partnership Bill in Britain cleared the final hurdle in the House of Lords last week and received Royal Assent, the Church of England is now under increasing pressure to give the green light to same-sex blessings in the Church. However, as revealed by the Times newspaper yesterday, bishops have admitted that homosexual marriage ceremonies are actually increasing in the Church despite it not being officially recognised.

The newspaper reported that ceremonies by Anglican priests blessing lesbian and gay partnerships increased by 10 percent last year to 300 in England alone. Even more drastically, the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) is expecting the number to reach a thousand per year after the amendment of the law.

Rev Neil Richardson, the Rector of Holy Cross, Greenford, in the London diocese, in an interview told how he has so far carried out 12 such blessings, yet no other bishop has ever tried to stop him even though they had all been aware of what he was doing.

Actually the phenomenon is not just observed in this single church. Bishops seemingly are turning a blind eye to gay ceremonies, which is worrying many that the number will continue to escalate up to a thousand – the equivalent to the number of divorces.

The Anglican Church is being criticised by the conservative evangelicals for allowing the liberal agenda to proceed in the Church. The Windsor Report published in mid-October by the Lambeth Commission, which aimed to resolve the crisis over sexuality in the Church, in fact failed to discuss the topic of homosexuality in a theological sense but instead simply focused on embracing all parties on each side of the debate.

While the report will be further debated in February 2005, there are no plans for the Church of England to authorise the liturgy for same-sex marriage. However, Peter Crumpler, a spokesman for the Church of England said, “Clergy are free to pray for anyone in a private and pastoral situation.” The Church allows clergy to improvise their own services, and privately many bishops endorse the practice.

The Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, the third most senior bishop in the Church of England, even made a highly criticised action in the publication of his new book of prayers this month - The Naked Year. In the book, to the dismay of many others, he includes a positive reflection on the annual Gay Pride march in London and a prayer for the blessing service of a lesbian couple.

Under the slipping slope in the Church of England, the Rev Martin Reynolds, a licensed priest in Wales and the official spokesman for the LGCM said that many retired homosexual bishops are “queuing up” to perform the ceremony.

According to the London Evening Standard, a well-known Christian politician, Labour government Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter since 1997, will legally bind his long-term relationship to senior BBC producer Neal Dalgleish later next year. Bradshaw is a practicing churchgoer and a member of the Christian Socialist Movement.

Many have rebuked the Windsor report, however: in a statement written by Archbishop Peter Akinola, Primate of All Nigeria to the Anglican Communion, he described the report as “patronising”. He criticised the Lambeth Commission, who produced the report for not using proper languages to rebuke those who are promoting sexual sins as holy and acceptable behaviour.

As the leader of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, which has some 17.5 million Anglicans, Archbishop Akinola stands in line with other Primates in the Global South in support of a conservative viewpoint towards homosexuality in the Church. They condemned the ordination of homosexual clergy in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) as they say it “attacks the Church’s witness to the Gospel and God’s gift of salvation in Jesus Christ”.

Nigeria has the second highest number of Anglicans in the world, after the church’s birthplace in the UK. The issue will be taken further in talks scheduled for February 2005.