One pupil made a request on behalf of at least eight of his Anglican Church Grammar School mates wanting to take their partners to the June 19 event - but was told that the policy of taking only female dates had never been challenged.

According to media reports, the student, who did not wish to be named, approached a senior teacher Dr Phil Cummins about the request and was told that the school's practice of allowing only female formal partners might be "quietly changed" if he did not make a big deal about it.

"(Dr Cummins) said to me, 'if you start a political movement this is going to get blown out of proportion. If you go quietly about this and if you don't cause us too much trouble, we will just quietly change the rules so they're allowed and no-one gets hurt'," the student said.

Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, has publicly backed the school's decision saying that homosexuality in the view of the church is wrong.

"People do send their children to our schools - they send them there on the understanding that we understand from the teaching of the Bible that the expression of same-sex attraction... is morally wrong," Dr Jensen was quoted as saying to Macquarie radio, according to The Australian on Tuesday.

Laurie Scandrett, chief executive of the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, says he supports the decision undertaken by the school although there is no umbrella "edict" among its schools banning gay students to take their partners to school dances. But it "would not be encouraged," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

The news has sparked an intense public debate in newspapers and the Internet after a local newspaper ran a headline, "School bans gay couples" over the weekend.

Noting that the debate on the Internet has evolved into an issue of public attitudes towards homosexuality, media studies associate professor Karen Brooks highlighted the amount of "vitriol and negativity" found in some of the online blogs as a cause for concern.

"Why is it we are so often protected from racial abuse and gender abuse, but when it comes to comments about homosexuality, it is like the filter collapses and this hatred is allowed to come to the fore?" the Southern Cross University associate professor was quoted as saying in the Sunshine Coast Daily.

Meanwhile in Victoria, the State Government has said that state schools are expected to adhere to equal opportunity legislation and thus must allow gay students to bring their partners to formals and functions.

The students at Churchie, as the school is commonly known, involved say they may boycott their senior formal but will not lodge a complaint with Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission.

Under Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Act, private schools are exempt only for the purpose of enrolling students from one gender or religious background. Any other forms of discrimination on the basis of sexuality is unlawful and applies to both public and private schools.