By A.S. Haley
The litigation agenda of the Episcopal Church (USA) continues to garner victories in California (where a single federal district court was allowed to overturn a constitutional initiative passed by a clear majority of voters). At the same time, ECUSA’s agenda in South Carolina suffered another defeat. Nonetheless, neither decision resolves any of the questions at issue once and for all. Thus, neither side may yet claim “victory”, but only to have reached one more stage in the interminable torture of litigation.
As for California, there is now one more court decision (albeit a tentative one) that proceeds along the lines previously discussed in my previous posts here, here and here. The difference is that those previous decisions involved parishes leaving their dioceses without the consent of the diocesan bishop or the standing committee; the present decision uses those same precedents to hold that a diocese of the Church (in this case, the former Diocese of San Joaquin) is in no better a position to withdraw than is a single parish.
Read more at http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/05/ecusa-prevails-again-in-california.html
Related article:
South Carolina Supreme court rejects Episcopal Church Appeal