If you're not convinced by Tom Wright's description of the biblical basis of marriage, but can't quite think what's wrong with it, you might like to attend this seminar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

What nonsense.  TEC (there is no such body as ECUSA) has not decided to walk.  A province of the Anglican Communion has gone about making pastoral descions about how it conducts itself on matters of Church Order.  Testosterone-fuelled language about 'walking' will not help.  Nor will pretending that there are no practising homosexual priests or bishops in the Church of England. A friend of mine once tried in private to tell his (evangelical) bishop that he was homosexual. The bishop shouted him down, and refused to let him finish the conversation. He wanted to be able to say that he had no KNOWLEDGE that any of his clergy were gay. Can Pete Broadbent put his hand on his heart and say to us, 'none of the clergy in my patch is a practising homosexual, and I don't even suspect any of them of being such'? Bishops play language games about knowledge. They don't 'know', but they 'know'. It's sickening hypocrisy.

Just in the interests of accuracy. Disraeli was not Jewish, he was a Christian of jewish descent.

Roger,  thanks for your post and its useful list. Don't forget to add pain relief during childbirth. Church people opposed this because it contradicted the judgement of God in Genesis, which requires that pain should be present in childbirth as a punishment for the sin of Eve.

Hi john, I tried to post a reply to you earlier, but it seems to have got lost. The best guide you could go to, though it suggests a lot of reading, is here:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index-bos.html

John Boswell is the outstanding cultural historian in this field. I heard him speak in London to the Consultation Group back in the early eighties. He was inspiring.  More info about him at Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boswell

OOOOPS.  TYPO. resource.

Hi John. I think it would be hard to find a better resourse than this:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index-bos.html

David H:

In fuller answer to your question:

When Penguin announced plans to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960, the Home Office tried to stop them in court. They failed because they could find only one witness for the prosecution, compared to the 35 academics who testified to the work's literary merit. And if the jury had any doubts that the establishment was out of touch, the infamous remark by the prosecuting QC, Mervyn Griffith-Jones helped them decide: "Ask yourselves", he blustered, "is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" With the ban overturned, Lady Chatterley's Lover sold two million copies in a year.

My post about wives and servants was a light-hearted way of saying that I wouldn't want anyone to have to listen to that crew of speakers.

David H, are you familiar with the Chatterley trial?

Would you want your wife or your servants to attend this meeting? I know I wouldn't.

It also has implications for churches.  Thankfully, most churches still have more older people than young ones, so we can expect more and more to see gay couples and singles needing the sort of support that we have traditionally offered to elderly couples and singles. Not just in the pastoral care and wider social life of the church, but in the ministry of working with local community and social services. We need urgently to raise the awareness of clergy for the care of elderly LGBT people.

David H's contribution shows how difficult it is to have a serious discussion with people who don't accept critical method.  None of these three accounts is by an eye witness. Matthew and Luke copied Mark, who, in turn, had it from a line of oral tradition at some distance from the events. Now, that's possibly not the whole story, but it's one of several reputable ideas about the formation of the gospels, and to ignore that and and simply say the passages quoted are the testimony of three witnesses makes it impossible to continue the dialogue.