LONDON, Nov 29 (Openly) - Guidelines to teach same-sex relationships to the 1 million children at Church of England (CofE) schools were dismissed by activists on Friday as "underwhelming" as the church stepped into the ongoing debate over age-appropriate sex education.

The church's eight-point charter, to which CofE schools and others can sign up, said it sought to balance a respect for the country's "diverse community" with the sensitivities of the "faiths and beliefs of those in the wider school community".

However, LGBT+ campaigners were scathing in their evaluation of the proposals from the 485-year-old institution.

"It's a classic bit of Church of England fudge," said Canon Jeremy Pemberton, who was stripped of his church duties following his 2014 marriage to his long-term male partner. "They are desperate to be seen as right on and good and lovely, but they're not really, are they?" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, citing the institution's ban on same-sex weddings in CofE churches. Read more via Openly