LONDON (RNS) Britain’s Quakers, who already bless gay partnerships, will now offer a marriage ceremony to gay couples within their membership.

Some 1,200 Quakers, officially known as the Religious Society of Friends, also demanded at their annual meeting Friday (July 31) in York, England, that the British government recognize same-sex unions as valid.

Britain does not consider gay marriage to be legal, and the issue has sharply divided other churches here.

Quaker spokesman Michael Hutchinson told journalists after the weeklong convention in York that “many of our meetings have told us that there are homosexual couples who consider themselves to be married and believe this as much a testimony of divine grace as heterosexual marriage.”

Quaker couples, Hutchinson said, “miss the public recognition in a religious ceremony.”

Peter Tatchell, a British human rights activist, told London’s Daily Mail newspaper that “the Quakers’ decision exposes the homophobia of other faiths that refuse to recognize love and commitment between couples of the same sex.”

This, he added, “specifically exposes their denial of religious marriage to same-sex couples.”

The controversy surrounding gay marriage has sharply divided the worldwide Anglican Communion, for one, prompting Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to warn that Anglicans could split over the issue.

Quakers, who have had the right to conduct heterosexual marriages in England and Wales for 256 years, have for the past four years allowed its gay members to opt for a blessing after a civil ceremony.

An estimated 300,000 Quakers are scattered around the world, but Friday’s decision affects only the 25,000 who live in Britain.