Dr John Sentamu: gay marriage plans are for 'emotional need' not righting injustice In a detailed response paper, to be published today, the Archbishop argues that civil partnerships, introduced in 2004, should be allowed to establish themselves before any further change in the law is considered. Dr Sentamu writes that homosexual couples should enjoy complete equality with heterosexuals but argues that this does not mean redefining marriage. He also acknowledges that the Church has been "complicit" in "discrimination and sometimes worse" against gay people in the past. "There is much penance to be done before we can look our homosexual brothers and sisters in the eye," he writes. But that baleful history does not diminish the need to speak the truth in love. He explains: "Up to now, the only reason I have been given for a desire to redefine marriage to embrace same-sex relationships is that it meets an emotional need of some same-sex couples (only some, as I have forcefully been led to believe some reject the concept of marriage altogether). "If the rights of civil partners are met differently in law to those of married couples, there is no discrimination in law, and if civil partnerships are seen as somehow "second class" that is a social attitude which will change and cannot, in any case, be turned around by redefining the law of marriage. It may even make social attitudes go in reverse gear. So I submit that to use the law to redefine marriage when there is no legal inequity involved is a misuse of the statute. It must never be used to give comfort or reassurance but to remedy an injustice.