AS I tried to fathom what in heaven's name the Church of England was up to in York this week, divine inspiration struck. General Synod, I thought, is like Britain's biggest golf club. It is run on very similar lines.

T'committee is dominated by white, middle class, middle-aged men, whose facial expressions waver from sour to grumpy. For a long time, they have kept the place orderly - ensuring the Synod was a sanctuary from the real world for your man's man (or in this case, your clergyman's clergyman).

But then a group of long-haired liberals kicked up a fuss. First, they demanded equal status for the ladies, which they call women.

Of course, t'committee resisted. I mean, you can't avoid having ladies around the place, around 70 per cent of church congregations are of the fairer sex, and that's cracking, they're fair pleasing on the eye.

And, t'committee had done all it could to involve the ladies. They could organise the bring-and-buy sales and teach Sunday School. Do everything except be priests in fact. That there's men's work, petal.

Alas, the trendy vicars won the day and now there are women in dog collars all over t'shop. Many on t'committee don't approve of it like, but at least they have ensured the best jobs, the bishops and archbishops, are kept for the boys.

The liberal lobby did not stop there, mind. Not happy with just women priests, now they are demanding poufs as bishops! Jesus Christ Almighty. Whatever next - blacks and Asians? Not on our watch, mucker...

Just like any men's club, the church is run by the rule book. Men love rules. Golf clubs issue little manuals packed with regulations, which detail, section by sub-section, accepted standards of behaviour. The church has something similar. It's called the bible.

Trouble is, the bible's rules are none too consistent or explicit. Perhaps that's why they call it the General Synod: if it were the Specific Synod, things may run far more smoothly.

Biblical vagueness allows for a wide degree of interpretation. So the traditionalists claim homosexuality is outlawed by the scriptures, yet modernists can say "piffle!".

Reform, the conservative evangelical network, describes homosexuality as sinful. That case is rebutted point by point in a book by the Rev Neil Dawson, of the Lesbian and Gay Christians group.

I'm with Neil. Because we are all blessed with freedom of imagination, those people who stick rigidly to a set of rules, however odd or arbitrary, disturb me.

The bible is a great work of literature, but much of it - especially the Old Testament - is based on centuries-old fear, superstition and prejudice. Meanwhile, the four gospels, which offer more relevant moral guidance, make no mention at all of homosexuality, according to the Rev Dawson.

Any organisation, be it a golf club or a church, must change to match the needs of modern life. It is particularly sad that the Church of England still seems keen to alienate gay people, who have fought for and won some degree of equality after being criminalised and stigmatised for so many years.

The Archbishop of York, the humane face of the church, was right to hit out at the "ignorance, bigotry and homophobia" the recent rows have exposed.

Inevitably there is talk of healing and unity. Too late. The only way to stop the rift is to let the reactionaries break away and form their own place run to their own rules. The Church of the Latter Day Bigots, perhaps?

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, July 16, 2003