Conclusion

The church maintained an influential role in public debates about issues of sexuality for much of the twentieth century, but gradually lost its position due to its struggle with the direction that some cultural shifts in attitudes and behaviour began to take from the 1970s onwards. In the late twentieth century, long-standing disagreements and conflict, which centred on unresolved tensions in Anglican thinking, finally caught up with the church. The late 1970s and early 1980s were historically decisive moments, and the church’s subsequent struggles over issues of gay identity and relationships intensified. The origins of the church’s contemporary difficulties over same-sex marriage and gay clergy can be traced back to the late twentieth century and were exacerbated by the rise of internal Anglican opposition, both nationally and globally.