But if that's your reason for opposing same-sex marriages, says Moreton, then wouldn't that be giving in to a form of blackmail? Here Welby could have waffled but didn't. "It would be. You can't say, 'We're not going to do X, which we think is right, because it will cause trouble.' That's ridiculous."

No: the Archbishop's reason for trying to stay the hand of the C of E in blessing gay marriages in church is that the persecuted Anglicans themselves would feel disowned by the leader of the Anglican Communion. To quote Cole Moreton: "In some ways it would be easier for him to yield to campaigners in this country. But Justin Welby believes that to shift doctrine too quickly or too far would be to turn his back on those in South Sudan whose tears he has shared."

So what he's saying, in effect, is that he's not going to allow his House of Bishops to effect a nifty U-turn that forces oppressed Christians abroad either to change their minds overnight about an "abomination", as they see it, or to leave the Anglican Communion when they crave its moral support.

That's a perfectly sensible approach, in so far as it goes. But Archbishop Welby's attempt to reconcile it with his surprisingly passionate defence of LGBT Christians is not convincing: we're supposed to believe that "consultation" will enable the C of E to arrive at the "right" decision about blessing homosexual marriages, whatever that might be. (There's no question, yet, of gay weddings in C of E churches, which are forbidden by the new law.)

Moreover, it means that the Archbishop of Canterbury will not say whether gay marriage is morally wrong. When Moreton asks him about the Anglican priest in Lincolnshire who's just married his boyfriend, he replies: "It's best if I do not comment on that". It's a matter for the Bishop of Lincoln.

Really? And if clergy all over the country break church rules (but not the law) by marrying their same-sex partners in civil ceremonies, will the Primate of All England maintain his diplomatic silence?

Surely an easy way out would be for the Archbishop to say: "I'm an evangelical Christian who believes that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. This is the firm teaching of the Church of England, as well as of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches. Therefore, while not wishing to stigmatise gay Christians, I cannot countenance blessing unions that are not sacramentally valid marriages."

That Archbishop Welby does not say this implies that, like vast numbers of Anglicans, he regards homosexual marriage as a plausible "development of doctrine". I've said before that the C of E will accommodate itself to the law sooner rather than later, and that liberal evangelicals -- of whom the Archbishop is one -- are divided on this matter, much to the horror of old-style evangelicals such as Lord Carey.

The Archbishop must know that his current stance is no more than a holding position: it reminds me of Robert Runcie's agonising about women priests. Look at it this way. For decades, every Archbishop of Canterbury has tried to combine primacy of England's established Church with leadership of an Anglican Communion that is not really a communion at all, since it is held together by history and sentiment rather than by doctrine and teaching authority. The passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 -- with the tacit support of influential bishops -- makes this an impossible challenge. Sooner or later Justin Welby will have to tell us exactly where he stands on gay marriage, and then face the consequences.

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