I can marry same-sex couples in Scotland – so why not in England?

In a couple of weeks’ time, I’ll be travelling down to England. Everyone in Scotland knows that the border between England and Scotland means lots of things. For me, crossing that border brings about a profound identity change.

Living north of the border, my identity as a gay Anglican priest is little cause for comment. I marry same-sex couples on the same basis that I marry straight couples. I baptise their children. I bury their dead. And one day, should anyone decide that they’ll have me, I could get married myself.

As with all weddings, that would be the cause of celebration – the choir would sing, the bells would ring and my friends would organise a ceilidh to end all ceilidhs.

Crossing the border though, I remain a gay Anglican priest but gain a curious superpower. For gay clergy in the Church of England are regularly described both from within the church and in loud newspaper headlines as people who are about to wreak havoc on the worldwide Anglican Communion and, in the words of the marriage service, put it asunder.

Not content with that, we could end the established status of the Church of England, bringing constitutional chaos to institutions such as the monarchy and the House of Lords.

That’s quite lot of power to acquire on simply taking a day trip to Carlisle.

For decades, there have been calls for the Church of England to recognise, bless and celebrate gay couples. For decades, those calls have been rebuffed by decisions of the General Synod of the Church of England. The rising power of conservative voices within the church has led to a curious state of affairs whereby the Synod regularly proclaims that it doesn’t want LGBTQIA+ people to be upset, in any way at all.

These statements are inevitably accompanied by decisions which lead to public and private anguish among those most directly affected. The real cruelty of all of this isn’t simply some kind of secret homophobia – it is that it is delivered openly and with incredible politeness.

Now, the General Synod of the Church of England has brought to an end the latest attempt to address these matters. The decade-long discussion process called “Living in Love and Faith” has had resources thrown at it and has led to no meaningful change at all. It was a process that promised little and has delivered less. It has now come to a bitter and inglorious end that seems to have pleased no one.

Same-sex couples will still not be able to get married in parish churches in England. Some of them will sneak up to Scotland to be married by people like me. Clergy in the Church of England will still not be able to marry their loved ones and be able to apply for new jobs.

One of the curiosities of the way the Church of England’s year works is that those hoping to be able to celebrate such relationships that are widely acknowledged already to-be present in the church, tend to get rebuffed around Valentine’s Day. See what I mean about how cruel these oh-so-politely delivered snubs can be?

This state of affairs pleases no one, and contributes to a view that the Church of England is completely behind the times.

When the Scottish Episcopal Church (that part of the Anglican Communion that is north of the Border) changed its rules on marriage nine years ago, the terms of the debate were very different to those of the Church of England. Here, we started the debate with a recognition that we were divided about whether same-sex couples could wed in church and didn’t really try to unite everyone around one view. Such attempts are always doomed to failure. Our debate was more about how to live with ourselves and come to a settlement that respected the conscience of everyone.

That means that I get my freedom to marry before God, and it also means that those who think God might not want to be a guest at that ceilidh can’t be forced to conduct such a ceremony. Of course, I wouldn’t particularly want anyone hesitant about my nuptials to conduct them, so it is no skin off my nose to let them be as hesitant as they like.

It is nine years since we agreed to do this. Funnily enough, the consequence of all this didn’t turn out to be the end of the Anglican Communion. The Communion still goes on, as messy and dysfunctional as it always has been. The main consequences of that change turned out to be two very different kinds of joy. One joy that is deep and real is being able to celebrate love wherever it is found. But the second joy is just as important. It is the joy of never having to endure another pained synodical debate about this.

North of that border, I can thank God for holy common sense.

The Very Revd Kelvin Holdsworth is rector and provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow and an LGBT+ campaigner