a looming "immoral abyss''.

The Rev. Colbert Sesanker, director of the Island's Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, warned against taking steps towards "the ultimate collapse of moral values''.

The PAC is the latest of the Island's smaller churches to take a stand against making gay sex legal. There are three PAC churches in Bermuda, representing 300 believers.

Debate over Bermuda's rarely-used law against gay male sex has been sparked by US activists, who say it goes against international agreements on human rights.

Mr. Sesanker said: "We stand firmly against any attempt to legalise what God has unambiguously condemned as sinful and unnatural.

"To make legal what is sinful and unnatural is to steer the Country into an immoral abyss which will do nothing positive for these Islands, but will instead write its prescription for ruin, and the ultimate collapse of moral values in the society.

"When God made Adam he did not find any created being compatible to him, therefore God created woman for man. She was made to fit his need.

"She became his wife and they became `one flesh'. This is God's plan and this is what is natural, a man and a woman. When this is reversed it becomes unnatural and is therefore sinful.'' Mr. Sesanker said the PAC churches "affirm the rights of all people, including homosexuals, to share equally in the privileges of our free and democratic society.

"We uphold the view that the scriptures teach that homosexual practice is unnatural and sinful. At the same time, we call upon all persons to love the homosexual and practise justice and equality to them.'' Bermuda's two largest churches -- the Anglican and Roman Catholic -- have said gay sex should not be a crime. But the AME Church, the third largest on the Island, is opposed to changing the law.