During the February debate on the Anglican Covenant, Giles Goddard said this:
Canon Giles Goddard (Southwark) said that there was “an elephant in the room”: lesbian and gay Christians. “Close to the surface of our discussion is the question of the Church’s moving on lesbian and gay Christians. We haven’t discussed it, and it comes out in other ways.”
Canon Goddard said that he supported Mr Ward’s motion, “because the Covenant will make conversations more difficult. It will be used to beat with a stick those who wish to be more inclusive. . . Those who oppose the Covenant should vote for this motion.”
He is absolutely right. If I remember the debate correctly he said there was a wound in the church around lesbian and gay issues, and I feel this wound myself, very profoundly. I think we are bleeding, and the blood that has been spilt is that of lesbian and gay Christians. Although I am not myself homosexual, I can't help but feel the pain as I stand beside my lesbian and gay friends, it has become my own pain and I am wounded too by the approach of the Anglican Communion.
There have been three gross travesties. The first is Lambeth 1:10 which was a document that was to encompass the complex viewpoints of Bishops in the Anglican Communion. Conservatives put pressure on the then Archbishop and under inappropriate conditions it was amended to declare homosexual practice to be unbiblical. It has been a stick to beat Anglican homosexual people with ever since.
Then Jeffrey John, a celibate partnered homosexual man was appointed Bishop of Reading. He fulfilled the requirements to be a Bishop - ie as a gay man he was celibate - and the conservative outcry and bullying tactics caused an injustice, and he was asked to resign. The result was a 10000 signature petition and the birth of Inclusive Church. Given that Jeffrey John was asked to resign, what does that mean for every other gay priest who may be put forward to be a Bishop?
The Windsor Report was a result of Conservative Anglicans being upset that a gay man was consecrated as a bishop. Gene Robinson, however is not celibate, as gay and lesbian Christians in The Episcopal Church have equality with heterosexual Christians. The Windsor Report puts the schism in the Anglican Communion firmly on the shoulders of those who offer homosexual people equality. Out of the Windsor Report came the desire to create an Anglican Covenant so that those Provinces who believe in LGBT equality can be relegated.
As Bishop John Saxbee said
The Covenant may of itself not be tyrannical, but there are those in the Communion whose treatment of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers has had at least a touch of the tyrannical about it. And if I ever come to the conclusion that a covenant of this kind would give them comfort then I would be bound to resist it.
The elephant in the room is that a huge number of us believe that the Anglican Covenant will be wielded to further wound and victimise gay people. The dreadful death of David Kato is a solemn reminder of the hatred of homophobia and the Anglican Covenant is too closely associated with this sort of hatred.