One of the foremost evangelical bishops in the Church of Ireland, Bishop Harold Miller, says that the Church can never support homosexual relationships, even if science later proves them to be "natural".
Speaking in an interview with Northern Irish publication News Letter this week, Bishop Miller said that the head of the Church of Ireland, Archbishop Alan Harper, had been wrong to assert that the Church may have to re-think its position on same-sex relationships if science proves that homosexuality is "natural" for some men and women.
"If you say that because you are born with a certain inclination then it is God-given and you should be free to follow that through in your life, it doesn't make any logical sense whatever," Bishop told the newspaper.
"You would then have to say that there are many different inclinations with which people are born - even if it is true that this is an inherent thing - and which people spend their lifetime trying to subdue.
"The fact that you are born with it doesn't make any moral judgement on the inclination. People fight to subdue inherently bad tempers, depressive streaks or lots of sexual inclinations. Some inclinations are good, some are not good and some are mixed."
Archbishop Harper said in an address at a conference of the mission organisation USPG, ""It has not yet been conclusively shown that for some males and some females homosexuality and homosexual acts are natural rather than unnatural.
"If such comes to be shown, it will be necessary to acknowledge the full implications of that new aspect of the truth, and that insight applied to establish and acknowledge what may be a new status for homosexual relationships within the church."
Bishop Miller warned that if the Church did a U-turn on the issue of homosexuality, it would lead to compromise in other contested aspects of human sexuality.
"I stood at the front gate of a Cathedral in America last month and read a notice saying 'Anybody going on the LGBT parade come to the Cathedral first and have your relationship blessed by the bishop'," he said.
"There's no doubt about it - it's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered for a start - so the thing has widened already and you have to ask: what does it mean for someone who's born bisexual to follow their inclination or inclinations?" he said.
