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Church of England stance on sex and marriage is staggeringly stupid

<span>Photograph: I Love Images/Occasions/Alamy</span>
Photograph: I Love Images/Occasions/Alamy

I am a lifelong member of the Anglican communion. My current situation in life is that I am happily married – have been for over 30 years – to a woman who is also a lifelong member of the Anglican communion. However, in 2014 I transitioned, and changed from my birth gender, as a man, to my present gender, as a woman.

Just for clarity, then, I would be interested to know whether the Church of England’s latest teaching (New C of E statement on sex in civil partnerships condemned as confused, 24 January) says that my marital relationship with my wife is problematic because we are both women? Or whether it says that I am “not really a woman”, and so my marital relationship at any rate is quite unproblematic?

To put it another way, I am wondering whether the church’s attitude to me now is essentially one of homophobia, or transphobia. I look forward to its pastoral guidance on this difficult question.
Prof Sophie Grace Chappell
Dundee

• The pastoral guidance issued by Anglican bishops is staggering in its naivety and stupidity. The bishops, some of whom are now women, of course, seem to regard sexual activity as an entirely avoidable activity, separate from a normal, intimate, mutually supportive, committed and loving relationship between two civil partners, whether they are men, women or men and women. Is it any wonder that intelligent human beings will simply think, as I do: what possible relevance does this ridiculous state institution have in the 21st century?
Dr Clive Sellick
Barton Turf, Norfolk

• The Church of England’s position that sex belongs only within heterosexual marriage highlights the need for church and state to go their separate ways. The church’s heartless, discriminatory and repressive stance will only accelerate its decline in public support and relevance – and the state should respond accordingly.

An organisation claiming that so many have no right to a sexual life should have no official ties to the state, no automatic right to seats in our legislature and no role in running state-funded schools.
Keith Porteous Wood
President, National Secular Society

• I had to read your report on the church’s new guidelines on marriage discipline twice, as I couldn’t believe my eyes. For clergy to be told not to bless civil partnerships between heterosexual couples is astonishing and outrageous. A civil partnership should be the norm for all couples without exception, as on the continent, with a religious ceremony to follow for all who wish it. This flight from common sense and European practice suggests the church has a serious death wish. Is Nigel Farage now advising Church House?
Very Rev Richard Giles
Tynemouth

Related: 'Laughing stock': letter from clergy attacks C of E's guidance on sex

• Congratulations to the C of E on its self-fulfilling prophecy of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. Not long ago, the General Synod was informed that if the decline in attendance continued, the church would not exist by 2050. An easy way to stop producing carbon. Last week’s pronouncement on sex and marriage, in effect condemning all those in straight or gay partnerships who have not had a church marriage, can only hasten the emptying of churches and hence achieve its environmental goal!
Rev Adrian Alker
Chair, Progressive Christianity Network Britain

• People doubtless go to church for all sorts of reasons. But I’d advise anyone looking there for friends, real or imaginary (Letters, 25 January), to ponder both the yardstick attributed to Jesus by St John the Evangelist – “You are my friends if you do what I command” – and the fact that much of church history is an account of people who, in the immortal words of the late Terry “not the Messiah” Jones (Obituary, 23 January), “would torture and kill each other because they couldn’t agree on what [Christ] was saying about peace and love”.
Fr Alec Mitchell
Holyhead, Anglesey

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