Andrew Foreshew-Cain, right, with his husband Stephen

A WEST Hampstead vicar has quit, with a warning that the Church of England is “institutionally homophobic”. Andrew Foreshew-Cain, 53, who was the first vicar to marry in a same-sex wedding, said gay and lesbian clergy were “barely tolerated” in the church.

He said as a result it was a “relief” to step down at St Mary with All Souls and St James’s. In a letter to parishioners, he explained: “When we married I was told that if I left here then an active ministry officially in the Church of England would be over, and that is likely to be the case.”

He said the Church leadership, “whilst willing to allow me to continue here, is unwil­ling to license me to a ministry elsewhere”.

He said the Church was “an institutionally homophobic organis­ation that blindly denies its policies and practices are deliberately and harmfully discrimina­tory and wrong”. He will be joining his husband Stephen in Manchester, who has moved for work.