The service was held at St Bartholomew the Great in London – one of England's oldest churches, which featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral – and was conducted by the parish rector, the Rev Martin Dudley.

The couple, the Rev Peter Cowell, who is a cleric at one of the Queen's churches, and the Rev Dr David Lord, had registered their civil partnership before the ceremony.

Mr Dudley opened the service by saying: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join these men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity. Such a covenant shows us the mystery of the union between God and God's people and between Christ and the Church." In the vows, Mr Cowell and Dr Lord pledged to "hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part".

Mr Dudley blessed the union with the words: "As David and Jonathan's souls were knit together, so these men may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made."

Somehow Mr. Dudley must have missed the part about the one kind of sexual union that God blesses... I mean its not like men weren't trying to get it on with other men back in Biblical times - and it was pretty clear in scripture that those unions were never blessed. For that matter neither did the Pagan Greeks or Romans - even though people practiced homosexuality, they never substituted it for marriage, because they realized the survival of civilization rested upon the ability to bear sons. (Real sons too, not the kind that play dress up in mommy's undergarments and lipstick...)