Rachel Gillingham

• I WAS not surprised to hear about the problems that Rachel Gillingham had encountered concerning her sexuality, and being prevented from leading Bible groups. (‘Forced out’: Lesbian told being openly gay did not meet church’s behaviour rules, February 4).

An openly gay person might have a calling to the single life and this should in fact be more of an asset than a liability, providing the teaching is based on God’s word and does not attempt to propagate its own agenda.

The real problem is concerning the double standards of the church and I feel that the Church of England should have opted in to the 2010 Equality Act and, at the same time, should have abolished all church weddings on the grounds that church marriages are not “sacramental”.

Baptism, on the other hand, is. Jesus did not preach sexuality, he preached unity, and we can only have this where there is clear evidence of equality.

We are not defined by our sexuality but by our humanity and by our faith in a loving God who accepts us just as we are.

However, the Bible does not enter into the conversation of sexuality, except to condemn certain sexual incongruities which tell us very little about human sexual relations.

As long as the churches continue the debate on same-sex marriage or choice of partnership, the more there will be division.

Are we having the wrong conversation and is the solution more simple? Love and sex are a commitment of the heart, not an institution.

The spiritual calling is not just a comfortable, cosy, safe, community of friends where we can claim our own “rights”.

It is often a call to solitude and often to loneliness and we can’t expect the church to act as counsellor for all our unresolved conflicts.

But what we can do is to ensure equality; therefore abolishing all church weddings would seem to be the only solution; making them a civil affair.

The Revd Jon March has endured equal suffering and it is just as appropriate to pray for him as for Rachel Gillingham.

I belonged to a church where there was huge pressure to vote on same-sex marriage and I could not find Bible justification to vote for this; so I abstained.

Relations became difficult and I chose to leave, but, as time went on and I rejoined the CofE, I came to understand that the main issue was not one of sexuality but a problem of inequality; and that the only real resolution to this dialogue would be to stop all weddings in churches and let us love one another as Christ loved us, without discrimination. And to try to stop playing God.

SUZANNE, NW1