Archbishop Vercoe is an idealist, proclaims the NZ Herald's letters editor, Garth George, but if he's dreaming of a world without gays, then he might as well be dreaming of a world without fornicators, adulterers, and cancer. George says there is nothing new in what Vercoe had to say, and that mainline churches have been debating the issue of “homosexuals in the faith” for many years, “except in the Catholic Church, which has always held an unequivocal view on the matter (although that has not stopped some of its priests indulging in shockingly destructive homosexual behaviour)”. He also labels Richard Randerson's op-ed piece in yesterday's Herald, which criticised Vercoe's views, as “predictable”, and slams other critics of Vercoe as “heterophobes”. "...since there is not now, or ever will be, agreement among anthropologists, geneticists, sociologists and sundry other "ists" on whether homosexuality is genetic or learned, and since there is even less chance of any agreement being reached on what the Bible says on the matter, this controversy is never going to go away,” he says.