Respected gay author Witi Ihimaera has called for the resignation of new Anglican Church head Archbishop Vercoe following statements released at the weekend that revealed he dreamed of a future backlash against gays. "They were the sort of comments I would have expected to hear coming out of Noah's waka, and not from the head of the Anglican Church in New Zealand,” he says. “I would really call for his resignation because he needs to get pastoral advice - his comments are very, very punitive, they are very patriarchal, very homophobic and very sexist." Vercoe may have also breached Anglican Church protocol. Auckland University theological lecturer and Anglican priest, Philip Culbertson, says he believes the archbishop's comments were a breach of a prohibition by the church's ruling Lambeth Conference against homophobic statements. He says Vercoe did not represent the position of the Anglican Church, which had left the issue of homosexuality unresolved, and that the archbishop was being potentially divisive in being "so offensive to so many people in the church".