Restrictions for Gays Suggested: Bishop Says Common-Law Bigger Issue

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Should gays and lesbians have full membership rights within the Anglican Church? Officially, though practising gays and lesbians can serve in any role short of ordination, it doesn't work that way in every diocese, and that is prompting a larger debate: what authority do individual dioceses have to depart from national guidelines?

Those issues came up again as part of the triennial synod of the Diocese of the Arctic in May.

In his charge to synod, Bishop Chris Williams essentially stuck with national guidelines on the matter of homosexuality and ordination -- first passed by the House of Bishops in 1979 and reaffirmed with revisions in 1997 and at last year's Lambeth conference -- which allow gays and lesbians to be ordained only if they remain celibate, and …