Since the Elizabethan Archbishop Parker married Margaret Harleston in the 1540s, the Anglican Church has always been marked by its married priests. Historians have noted that Anglican Priests have always married women. This is the main reason behind the most serious split in the Anglican Communion, caused by the ordination of women priests in the 1990s. These women made fine priests but were unable to marry other women. Traditionalists were appalled that these new women priests were married to men – even the gay priests weren’t allowed to do that! Archbishop George Carey was forced to resign over his handling of the issue.
A solution was at hand, however; lesbian Priests. The2008 Lambeth Conference agreed that a lesbian Priest in a civil partnership or gay marriage, depending on the jurisdiction in which they lived, would make a perfectly satisfactory Priest. The future of the Anglican Communion was assured.
