THE Church of England overnight urged a full debate on the issue of homosexuality, publishing a guide designed to foster unbiased communication on the contentious issue.
The report, Some Issues in Human Sexuality, said that homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people should be treated with compassion, but it stopped short of recommending any new policy for the church.
The guide was designed to be used by study groups at local parishes as well as at higher levels.
Published by the Church of England House of Bishops, it comes just two days after the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as Bishop of New Hampshire. His elevation by the Episcopal Church, the US branch of Anglicanism, has threatened to split the 77 million strong worldwide Anglican Communion.
"Recent events have highlighted the need for such a guide, and the House of Bishops believe it has become timely to publish this study guide now to help Christian people think through different aspects of gay, lesbian and transsexual relationships," the Reverend Richard Harries, the bishop of Oxford, said in London overnight.
The report, compiled by Harries and three other bishops after several years of research and consultation, said the divisive debate on sexuality will not go away and Christians must remember that "real people really do have homosexual and bisexual desires".
Referring to homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people, it said: "It is likely that they will have encountered misunderstandings or hostility from members of the Christian Church in the past, and, if the Christian gospel is to be meaningful to them, it will need to be incarnated in terms of Christ's love.
"If this is in the context of pastoral care, then that must offer them understanding, support, and unconditional love as they seek to meet the challenges to Christian discipleship that their particular form of sexuality raises," it added.
The guide also questions the "unhealthy obsession" with sexual sin and asks Christians to explore whether this is preventing them from focusing on other forms of sin such as commercial greed, poverty and inequalities of wealth.
But Harries stressed that the document did not seek to change a 1991 statement by the House of Bishops, which essentially forms the current Church of England policy that heterosexual marriage is the proper context for sexual activity.
That statement also said that gay people in long-term relationships should not be excluded from the fellowship of the Christian church, but gay clergy should remain celibate.
Harries appointed an openly gay clergyman, the Reverend Jeffrey John, as a bishop earlier this year. John, who said he no longer has a sexual relationship with his long-term partner, decided not to take up the post after opposition within the church.
Fellow researcher, Reverend Peter Foster, the bishop of Chester, said that preparing the guide had reinforced his view that sexual relations should be confined to the institution of marriage.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams overnight said there is a "real need" for more studies of the issues raised by sexuality.
Williams has said that the strength of the Anglican faith lies in its worldwide Communion, indicating that any new position on homosexuality should come from that source.
But Harries said the issue of sexuality should be debated regardless. "There is the question of the actual issue itself and the church of England needs to debate that whatever else happens in the Anglican Community," he said.