Gay bishop attacks 'two-track' Anglican vision as 'abhorrent to Jesus'

THE first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion yesterday criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion of a possible "two-track" church. Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, said: "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church.

"Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God."

It emerged last month that Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams had spoken of a "two-track" church to deal with divisions over homosexuality within the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Dr Williams said such a move was a possibility as Anglicanism struggles to find a new set of rules to deal with issues such as teaching on homosexuality.

A "twofold ecclesial reality" would allow for a global Anglican body that shared certain teachings, he said, with local churches relating to this body but in less formal ways.

Last month, Scotland on Sunday revealed senior Scots clergyman, the Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, had called on Holyrood to change the law to allow same-sex partners to marry in church, in the same way as straight couples.