Clergyman in same-sex 'marriage' blocked from job offer by bishop

The first Church of England clergyman to marry his same-sex partner in defiance of church rules, Jeremy Pemberton, has been blocked from taking a new job.

Mr Pemberton currently works as an NHS chaplain in Lincolnshire but was told he could not work as a priest in Nottinghamshire following his "marriage" in April, just two months after the House of Bishops ruled that same-sex marriage for clergy was contrary to the teaching of the Church of England.

He has called on the leadership of the church to re-examine the decision by the Acting Bishop for Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt Revd Richard Inwood. The Acting Bishop refused to issue a licence which would have allowed Mr Pemberton to take up a new job in Nottingham.

Mr Pemberton told the BBC he was "very, very disappointed" not to be able to take up the post of chaplaincy and bereavement manager for Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He said he felt he had been treated harshly and inconsistently, because he had a licence to do his current job from the Bishop of Lincoln.

Andrew Marsh of Christian Concern said:

"Sadly Canon Pemberton has acted provocatively and unrepentantly. God is clear, the Bible is clear, the teaching of the Church of England is clear and the Bishops’ pastoral guidance is clear that entering a same-sex ‘marriage’ is incompatible with being a minister of the Church of England.

"The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham is right to have taken action and Mr Pemberton surely cannot have expected that he could act in this deliberate way without consequence." 

Watch Christian Concern's Andrew Marsh comment on BBC Look North >