London - The head of the Anglican Church in Scotland declared himself in favour of blessing homosexual couples and backed the legalisation of cannabis, which he had tried, in an interview with the BBC yesterday.
"If we can bless battleships and foxhunts, why can't we bless a couple of human beings who want to be faithful to one another?" said the Most Rev Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
"Sex is the last hang-up of the church. We have been operating an ethic which is no longer appropriate to our time. I think that gay priests should be allowed to have stable relationships just like straight priests," the bishop said. "There are a lot of gay priests, of gay Christians. It's tough for them to feel marginalised, made into some kind of moral lepers, and the church would collapse without them." As a parish priest he had blessed the union of a homosexual couple, he said.