Homosexual clerics were certain to win their struggle for acceptance within the Church, the world’s first openly gay bishop told a Scottish congregration yesterday.

The Right Rev Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire, said that the worldwide Anglican Communion was eventually bound to recognise that it could not block out people who were attracted to people of the same sex. Bishop Robinson, who has become a hate figure among Christian fundamentalists because he is gay and living with another man, said: “The reason I can be calm in the middle of this particular storm is because I know how it is all going to turn out.

“It is going to end with the full inclusion of all God’s people in God’s Church. I don’t know when; it doesn’t matter when. But that is where we are headed and we must work hard to bring that Church about.” Speaking in a sermon to a packed congregation at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, Bishop Robinson, whose ordination as bishop five years ago caused a split in the worldwide Anglican church, said that it was not for Christians to judge others.

“None of us is on the selection committee,” he said. “God is on a committee of one, and he is the selection committee. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. The most likeable and the most unlikeable, the most loving and the most hateful are all God’s children. It’s time for us to stop worrying so much about the Church. The Church is not ours to win or lose. The Church is God’s.”

Bishop Robinson’s election as bishop has led bishops in places such as Africa and South America to try to get the American church expelled from the Anglican Communion. He has received death threats and had to attend his ordination wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Security at the cathedral in Glasgow was heightened for yesterday’s service. Police were present outside and stewards inside were on alert for anyone trying to disrupt the service. A small band of fundamentalist Christian protesters held up banners outside the gates and attempted to give out leaflets, but there was no trouble.

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