The Civil Partnership Act will come into force in Britain from Monday, and the controversial new legislation is expected to see up to 16,000 Britons register as “civil partners” by 2010.

|TOP|The new law will give gay and lesbian couples identical rights to married, heterosexual couples, including recognising a civil partner as the next-of-kin, rights under the rules of intestacy, if a civil partner dies without a valid will, and adoption rights. In addition the same financial provisions will be provided for any dissolution.

The Church of England over the past few months has come under heavy criticism for its compromise on the position bishops should take towards the new laws.

The Evangelical Council, which is the umbrella organisation for the evangelical groups within the Church, demanded in August that the Church’s attempts to compromise with the government’s civil partnerships legislation should be withdrawn immediately.

The council spoke out yesterday, 10th August 2005, against the decision by the Church of England Council of Bishops that clergy would be allowed to enter civil partnerships, just as long as they informed their supervising bishop that they would abstain from partaking in sexual relations with their partner.

|AD|In a clear and formal statement, the Evangelical Council criticised the Church’s leaders of submitting to the secular culture of moral decline. The council was recorded as saying, “We urge the House of Bishops to withdraw this compromised and unworkable statement while continuing to affirm the historic teaching of the church ... It will further exacerbate the division threatening the future of the Anglican Communion.”

Last month the Reform National Conference ended with members being told that the Pastoral Statement issued by the House of Bishops regarding the Church position on the Civil Partnerships Act was an “outrage”, according to Anglican Mainstream.

In October, the Nigerian Anglican leader, Archbishop Akinola used similar language to describe the House of Bishops statement, also calling it an outrage.

"As of now, we have not yet reached the point of schism, but there's a broken relationship," Archbishop Peter Akinola told reporters.

The Church of England’s House of Bishops has already announced on 25 July that gay priests who register same-sex partnerships under a new civil law will be accepted as long as they remain celibate.

Archbishop Akinola has said that there are still hopes of recovering church unity if liberal churches that were supporting homosexuality showed “repentance”, according to AP.

Through the Global South grouping of churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the Nigerian Anglican Church with its 17.5 million members has been taking on a leading role to oppose Church acceptance of homosexuality.

The churches in Nigeria and Uganda whose leaders have firmly opposed the direction that the Church of England has taken on the issue of homosexuality, have already cut their relations with the U.S Episcopal Church after it consecrated a gay bishop in 2003.

The relationship with Canada’s Anglican Church was also ended after the blessing of same-sex marriages were approved.

Issues on homosexuality in the Church have deeply scarred the Anglican Communion. Akinola said, “Why should England be spared?”