-You are resisting the inevitable future. Just as Galileo was resisted by the church, but shown to be the future in arguing that the world was round, so you are resisting the clear progress of truth in understanding human sexuality.

-You are wasting gospel time on elevating a second order issue on which there may be legitimate disagreement into a first order issue.

Moreover, it has lost its Anglican identity, even while it has failed to reach its own American culture in any significant way. The average Episcopalian, parish church and mission, bishop and priest seem to prefer to sleep at the bedside of the patient, thoughtless of the impending trauma, than to prepare for the inevitable or take swift action to avert it.

It was, however, the nature of the Civil Partnerships Bill, which was to become the Act, which has caused concern in several quarters. The Bill replicated for same-sex couples nearly all the provisions for marriage which are to be found in existing law. In particular, the prohibition on consanguinity reads very like the provision for marriage.

2. The small group of Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics of the Network and the AAC certainly oppose the more daring parts of the prophetic vocation of the progressive Liberals (whom they call "revisionists") and they have major allies abroad who agree with them; but most of them share the earlier parts of this vocation.