(London) A senior Church of England bishop says floods that have caused widespread damage in the UK are the result of God's wrath on a permissive society that endorses gay right.
"We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate," the Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, told the Sunday Telegraph.
"In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as 'the beast', which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want," he told the paper, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws undermines marriage.
"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."
Dow is a leading church conservative. The worldwide Anglican denomination has been engaged in a feud between conservatives and liberals over the role of gays in the faith since the American branch, the Episcopal Church, elected Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
Some church conservatives want the Episcopal Church expelled from the Anglican communion.
In May Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the titular leader of the worldwide church, told Robinson he was not invited to a conclave of bishops to be held in London. Last week Williams backtracked slightly saying Williams could attend the session but only as a non voting observer.
Bishop Dow's remarks are likely to add fuel to the already enflamed divisions within the denomination.
Gay members of the Church of England expressed their outrage.
The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association called Dow a "bronze age primitive".
*365Gay.com
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