Yes, you there, the boy at the back. You have a question?

The discussion on gays, lesbians and the Church has been struck up again. The Lambeth Conference cost the Church of England a reported £1.2M to achieve this end. So bits of discussion from different angles continues to unfold in lots of guises in lots of places. Lots has been said, and indeed, lots of people hurt. I feel as though i've heard many of the points that the differing sides have to make, and have a good grasp of the arguments. It's not my intention to replay them, or have them replayed here.

My intention is to ask a question that i haven't heard from anywhere else:
The people defined as liberal are arguing about what they perceive to be a justice / 'aparthied' issue. If they're so convinced by their position, why does Church unity take a greater importance to this? I suppose this is particulary a question of the Archbishop of Canterbury who, though his personal views are widely known, has opted to try and hold the anglican communion together - even with so much having been made of the 'integrity' with which ideas are held by both sides of the divide. If the discussion were over a gender or a racial issue this wouldn't happen would it? Those convinced of the equality of all before God wouldn't agree to stick together, to figure it out as we go. Not if all the while they believed it was extending the period a people group were being injustly treated, would they?

So, is Church unity more important than justice issues?

A couple of my thoughts on the question would be, firstly, that i firmly believe that, even across wildly divergant denominations, we remain one holy catholic Church. Secondly, to what are we called? To do justice or to do church?