AP 01/19 00:22 EST V0494
   NEW YORK (AP) -- A leading Episcopal divinity school is opening its
seminary housing to homosexual couples despite church policy declaring
sex is appropriate within marriage only.
   Unmarried heterosexual couples are still prohibited from living
together on campus, under the policy adopted by the General Theological
Seminary, the divinity school with the oldest and closest ties to the
Episcopal Church.
   Bishop Craig B. Anderson, seminary president, said the policy
approved last week by the board of trustees will help the church
address the issue of homosexuality.
   "It does provide the seminary community with a realistic and open
framework for living within the tension produced by the discontinuity
between the teaching of the Episcopal Church and the experience of many
of its members in the area of human sexuality," he said.
   General Theological Seminary, founded in 1817, is the only Episcopal
seminary in which some of the trustees are elected by the church's
policy-making body, the General Convention.
   Homosexuality has been a contentious issue in the Episcopal Church.
At the last General Convention in 1991, delegates passed a resolution
affirming "that the teaching of the Episcopal Church is that physical
sexual expression is appropriate only within the lifelong monogamous
'union of husband and wife in heart, body and mind."'
   Efforts to raise the church's opposition to the ordination of
homosexuals to the status of canon law have failed, and church
spokesman James Solheim said about a dozen bishops have ordained
homosexual clergy.
   The new policy was prompted in part by a lesbian professor who filed
a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights after
being told that living with her partner in seminary housing violated
school policy. The complaint had not been settled when the trustees
approved the new policy.
   Under the policy, the 150-student seminary is willing to make
apartments available to "committed same-sex couples." However, gay
seminarians seeking ordination and gay clergy would need the approval
of their diocesan bishop.
   Anderson said housing will not be available to unmarried
heterosexual couples because they have the option of marrying.
   Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning declined to
comment on the policy.
   Diane Porter, a member of the seminary board of trustees and an
executive at Episcopal headquarters in New York, said Monday that the
policy "is a major step forward for the seminary and the church."
   Anderson said the policy "allows the seminary to be a microcosm for
the rest of the church."