Episcopalians overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, solidifying the church’s embrace of homosexuality that began more than a decade ago with the pioneering election of the first openly gay bishop.
The vote came in Salt Lake City at the Episcopal General Convention, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage a nationwide constitutional right.
It passed in the House of Deputies, the voting body of clergy and lay participants at the meeting. The House of Bishops had approved the resolution Tuesday by 129-26 with five abstaining.
Prior to the vote, the Very Rev. Brian Baker of Sacramento said the church rule change was the result of a nearly four-decade long conversation that has been difficult and painful for many.
Baker, chairman of the committee that crafted the changes, said church members have not always been kind to one another but that the dynamic has changed in recent decades. In much of that period, conservative dissidents have left the Episcopal Church or been marginalized.
“We have learned to not only care for, but care about one other,” he said. “That mutual care was present in the conversations we had. Some people disagreed, some people disagreed deeply, but we prayed and we listened and we came up with compromises that we believe make room and leave no one behind.”
Baker said the denomination’s House of Bishops prayed and debated the issue for five hours earlier this week before passing it on to the House of Deputies.
The new rule eliminates sex-specific language from church laws on marriage so that same-sex couples could have religious weddings.
Instead of “husband” and “wife,” for example, the new church law will refer to “the couple.” Under the new rules, clergy can decline to perform the ceremonies.
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Here we go again. When will we ever learn to obey and to follow God’s Word.
This issue will come up at our next General Assembly. It will undermine the liberty of clergy who stand on the authority of scripture and our confessions to decline to conduct such unions.
Is this another sign that our Lord is separating the wheat from the tare? The good friut from the bad friut? Letting us see the wolves among his sheep? This is nothing more than an anti-biblical accomodation to the hot social topics of of today’s culture. Less than 200 dlegates decided for 1.9 milion episcopalians?
We beat the TEC in the race to get below 2M members! Way to go PC(USA). Their structure of representative government is the same as ours. They keep sending the same yahoo’s to their annual meeting as we keep sending.