The Scottish Evangelical Alliance has expressed its dismay at reports that the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly has voted to allow ministers to conduct blessing ceremonies for same-sex civil partnerships.

|PIC1|The extremely controversial decision means that the Church of Scotland may become the first major denomination in Britain to bless gay “marriages” after agreeing that individual ministers should be free to decide on the issue.

Scotland’s national church considered the issue of civil partnerships in a legal questions session at its General Assembly, which is taking place all this week.

In a divisive vote, which a large number of ministers had threatened to resign over, 322 votes to 314 supported offering individual laymen freedom to bless civil partnerships.

The General Assembly agreed that although a final decision would not be made until next year, “a minister or deacon who conducts any service marking a civil partnership does not commit a disciplinary offence.

“No minister or deacon shall be compelled or obliged to conduct such a service against his or her conscience.

|TOP|“Where a minister or deacon officiating at such service has been approached by the parties in the first instance, or where a minister or deacon so approached officiates in circumstances where the parish minister has declined to officiate, such minister or deacon shall not be deemed to have intruded upon the sphere of ministry of a parish minister.”

The Evangelical Alliance has been a prominent voice in warning that a change in the law that allowed same-sex couples to form civil partnerships based on matrimonial law represented a “staging-post” towards the inevitable legalisation of same-sex “marriage”.

The latest development by the Church of Scotland has acted as an immediate worrying confirmation that the Alliance's alarm was justified.

|AD|Keith Short, Chairman of the Evangelical Alliance Council in Scotland said, “We strongly reaffirm our commitment to marriage by definition being between one man and one woman. It is tragic to see the Kirk itself effectively endorsing a moral equivalence between marriage and same-sex partnerships.

“In our view this represents a betrayal of the church’s obligation to protect the dignity and sanctity of marriage and will directly contribute to the continuing undermining of family and matrimonial stability. As a consequence, marriage will increasingly become trivialised and disrespected until we are unable to prevent the absorption of almost any form of relationship under the label of ‘marriage’. That the church itself is succumbing to pressure from the world on this clear and fundamental issue is intensely distressing.”

He concluded, “We sincerely hope and pray that the Kirk’s presbyteries will stand up for orthodox and biblical truth when they come to give their verdict.”

The 2006 General Assembly opened on Saturday 20 May and will close on Friday 26 May.