"Our church [Anglican] says that the orientation is okay, but gay sex activity is wrong. That is crazy. We say the expression of love in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship is more than just the physical, but includes touching, embracing, kissing, maybe the genital act. The totality of this makes each of us grow to become giving, increasingly godlike and compassionate. If it is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual.

"It is a matter of ordinary justice. We struggled against apartheid in South Africa because we were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about.

"It is the same with homosexuality. The orientation is a given, not a matter of choice."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, former leader of South Africa's Anglicans and one of the world's best known churchmen, has in recent years spoken out strongly for homosexual rights.