IN this column, I try to address the principal concerns that people have written to me about, so this week I write, yet again, about same-sex marriage.

Notwithstanding the currency chaos facing the euro and all its implications for our economy, I continue to get more letters on the marriage issue than on anything else.

Last week, this pot was given another stir by the publication of the Church of England’s response to the government’s consultation on including samesex couples within the institution of marriage.

One of the church’s principal concerns is that the government’s assurance that clergy will not be required to marry same sex couples, is not trustworthy. I was interviewed on Sky news and I could not have been clearer in saying no clergyman in any church will be required to conduct a gay wedding as a consequence of the government’s proposals. In my estimation, the report of this interview published subsequently in the Daily Telegraph implied I had said the very opposite and that I favoured forcing clergy to conduct such marriages.

Given the clarity of what I did say, I can only conclude the newspaper, perhaps, has some agenda of its own and was deliberately making mischief.

It is significant that nobody from that newspaper contacted me before they published.

Understandably, this has prompted considerable correspondence from outraged constituents.

I am confident that, after the consultation concludes, if and when the government decides to proceed, then parliament is quite capable of framing the legislation to make it court proof – ensuring no court will entertain any case brought on grounds of refusal to conduct a same-sex marriage.

The church believes equality law will be used in test cases to force it to make same-sex marriages available in church, on the grounds that not to do so would constitute discrimination against same-sex couples.

The church states that, in order to protect itself from legal action that would force it to marry samesex couples, it would have to withdraw from offering any marriage services at all. My assessment is that this is bluff: I just do not believe the Church of England is going to stop marrying people. What is extraordinary about the church’s forthright response to the consultation is that it gives no hint to the dissent within its own ranks. There is a, not insignificant, element within the church which is not only in favour of same-sex marriage, but who are also in favour of doing it in church.

The church concludes that “to change the nature of marriage for everyone will be divisive and deliver no obvious legal gains given the rights already conferred by civil partnerships”. It is right on both counts: firstly, it certainly is divisive as I know from my own postbag, but sometimes it is important to do what you believe to be right, even if it is divisive.

Secondly, it is true same-sex marriage will afford no greater legal protection than a civil partnership already does, but couples don’t get married just to acquire the legal privileges, they do it for the sacramental blessing Holy Matrimony conveys.

Same-sex couples are excluded from this sacrament.

The church should concentrate on making the argument of why it thinks it is still right to exclude them. For my own part, and for the reasons I have set out previously in this column, I think they are making a historic mistake.