of Bermuda to change its stance against a repeal of the Island's gay laws.

Mr. Bill Courson said he was distressed and disappointed to learn of the AME Church's opposition to the repeal of laws which make it an offence for men to practice homosexuality.

The presiding elder of the church, the Rev. Conway M. Simmons condemned the moves in December.

Rev. Simmons said homosexuality was an abomination condemned in the Old and New Testaments and could promote the spread of AIDS.

In a letter, copied to all church leaders in Bermuda, Mr. Courson said: "Because your church and the position you occupy are ones of great influence in Bermudian society, I have felt myself obliged to make this letter an open one.

"I have long believed that if Methodism has a distinctive charisma within the Christian household of faith, it is the charisma of inclusiveness and hospitality.

"I find it difficult in the extreme to reconcile the position apparently taken in your statements with either the teachings of Jesus Christ, made manifest in the Gospel, or with the spirit of Wesleyan Christianity.

"As no doubt you are aware, the culture through which we view the teachings of our faith can act either as a lens to clarify those teachings or, as the Apostle Paul put it, `a piece of smoked glass' obscuring their contents and their intent.

"It was not so very long ago that precisely the same methodology you seem to employ in interpreting Scripture was used by an essentially racist culture to justify the racial subjugation of black people by white people.'' Mr. Courson also said that less than a century ago a similar interpretation of the Gospel by ministers had them preaching against anaesthesia in childbirth.

He goes on to put the church's anti-homosexuality stand in the same concept as religious obligations, like the avoidance of certain foods and wearing certain fabrics, in the "holiness code''.

Few of these obligations were binding on Christians today, he said.

The New Jersey-based accountant said certain sections of Christianity turn the spirit of the Gospel from "one of open and welcoming arms to one of a pointing finger''.

"Just as Jesus used his Messianic office to turn away the crowds who, for the sake of the law, would have stoned the adulteress, I implore you to use your office in such a spirit of charity and fraternal love,'' he said.

"I implore you and your church to prayerfully reconsider your position on this issue.''