I understand what the right reverend Prelate is trying to do and completely agree with it. However, I wonder whether he might also take away with him the issue of employees of the Church of England. The church is the only organisation exempt from the employment regulation that would otherwise
prevent the church from dismissing somebody for simply being gay. It was an exemption that it argued for and received. When the right reverend Prelate talks about other employers, I say with absolute humility that it would be lovely if the Church of England could revisit that decision about being able to sack gay priests who are not active homosexuals and are not having sex but who simply identify themselves as being gay. I will listen much more sympathetically to the arguments that the right reverend Prelate puts forward when that anomaly is corrected.