[Ramrod]

Gay clergy to be banned in Synod deal

The Church of England yesterday agreed to draw up a disciplinary code that could result in the expulsion of liberals from worldwide Anglicanism after it heard that the alternative was disintegration.

In an emotive debate at the General Synod in York, liberal speakers criticised the idea of such a covenant, saying it could be used like a "blunt instrument" against them.

But conservatives said that if the Church failed to define boundaries of belief, worldwide Anglicanism could never rebuild the trust destroyed during the conflict over homosexuality that has brought it to the brink of schism.