Jeffrey John breaks silence on civil partnership
Friday, 27 January 2006

The Dean of St Albans, Dr Jeffrey John, has broken his silence on civil partnerships, arguing that it is a “tragedy” that the Church cannot regard gay relationships as part of God’s work. Dr John says in the foreword to a new book published by Affirming Catholicism that civil partnerships rightly confer exactly the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual marriage.

His view flies in the face of Church of England bishops who have been at pains to emphasise that civil partnerships are not the same as marriage. The book is written by Jonathan Sedgwick.

In the book, Civil Partnership: A Guide for Christians, Dr John, who was forced to decline the post of Bishop of Reading after evangelical protests, says: “God made all of us, gay or straight, in his own image to reflect his kind of love.” the rest