Marriage resolutions progress and Cantaur is annoyed

 I guess the definition of a church nerd is someone who keeps a window with the twitter hashtag #GC78 open on the side of their workspace.  Yesterday, I followed the tweets as the House of Bishops (#HOB) debated A054 and A036, which address liturgy, access, and canons around marriage.  

Some of the comments were just plain loony, with one Bishop calling for same sex married couples to be celibate.

But in the end, the Bishops approved both measures and sent them to the House of Deputies for approval.

This is quite big.  Basically, the canonical change says that marriage is between two people, and does not specify their sex.  The resolutions also say that same sex couples in every diocese must have access to marriage, even as their Diocesan may be uncomfortable with this, still giving space to that discomfort.  Tobias Haller writes that this is not the status quo:

[T]he bishop who disagrees with this will have to find a way to make the liturgy accessible to every couple. I’m sure many creative ways can be found to do this in the small number of dioceses in which this will be true. The glass is half full, and we are in a time of evolution. Give it a chance — this offer of toleration is a principle reason these resolutions passed by such a large majority in the House of Bishops, as a recognition of generous pastoral outreach to the conservative bishops who now feel like beleaguered outcasts in their own church. Same shoe, other foot, some might say — but aren’t we able to be better than that. People can change, but forcing them is not the best way.

 Meanwhile,  Archbishop Justin Welby and the Church of England are Not Happy.

While recognising the prerogative of The Episcopal Church to address issues appropriate to its own context, Archbishop Justin Welby said that its decision will cause distress for some and have ramifications for the Anglican Communion as a whole, as well as for its ecumenical and interfaith relationships.

But that train has left the station.  Episcopal churches are already marrying gay folks.  And now it is the law of the land that gay folks can marry in every state.  In contrast, Welby's own Church of England is hardly an example to follow, forbidding priests from celebrating same sex marriages,  forbidding gay priests from marrying and punishing them if they do.  Basically, Welby is content to leave the LGBT in that "crucified place" (if you remember these debates from nearly a decade ago) in a misguided attempt to assuage the bigotry of certain African prelates.

Thankfully, TEC has moved on.

Now to the House of Deputies! 

Marriage on the GC agenda

So, off to General Convention they go, and whether or not there will be changes regarding  marriage  remains to be seen.

The estimable Tobias Haller has a lengthy post about the arguments going back and forth in advance of GC to which I direct you.  He points out that a distinction between the two views of marriage is that one "side" views marriage as an institution, while the other looks at individual marriages as real examples. Certainly, this is often the case in arguments with anti-equality folks.  They REFUSE to acknowledge that they are talking about real people and real  lives.

Thus, Tobias writes,

The TF [Task Force on Marriage]  made this point in its overall thrust towards focusing on the moral values that make a particular marriage holy, rather than in what might make marriage holy as an institution....

This comes to a head in the discussion of procreation, which appears to be, for many, the stumbling block. From the TF perspective, procreation can be understood as a purpose or good or end of marriage as an institution but need not be understood as such for an actual or particular marriage, and may be an impossibility for any number of specific actual marriages. It seems glaringly obvious to the TF that procreation can take place apart from marriage, and marriage from procreation. It is fine to say, as we have, joining the consensus of the church, that procreation should take place within marriage, but we have rejected the valuation of any given marriage as somehow being less than marriage when the couple do not, or cannot procreate.

and

The fact that procreation is ideally a purpose for the institution or establishment of marriage has absolutely no impact on the fact of the a real couple's marriage being fully a marriage, whether they procreate or not.

Amen, brother.

In any case, for those who persistently argue that the pro-equality side "hasn't done the theology", Tobias's essay and the resources to which he links will be of great help.

A call for marriage at GC2015

General Convention is coming up and we all hope this will be the endgame for marriage issues. BP and I only became officially part of TEC in 2009, and we went to the Integrity Eucharist and GC that year in Anaheim as part of a Friends of Jake / Father Jake meetup. The momentum was changing and there was hope in the air, and progress has been made, but we're six years further along.

By the end of this month, a decision from the Supreme Court on marriage will come down, and most are cautiously optimistic it will legalize same sex marriage  throughout the nation.  Where is the Episcopal Church in this? Right now, LGBT couples depend on "pastoral latitude" from their Bishops, and if they do marry or receive a blessing, it is in a special liturgy (very lovely, but clearly "special").  The Rev Mike Angell calls for equality, in part in solidarity with the milennial generation:

Doing less than amending our canons to allow same-sex couples to marry would communicate that we think that same-sex marriage is “less than” equal. .... 

In ministry with young adults, I have been at pains to explain the current position of our denomination on marriage equality. While the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church in the USA have approved marriage equality, we’re not there yet canonically. I find myself saying something like: “Yes, we support civil marriage equality broadly as a denomination, but because we are liturgically conservative tradition, and it takes a long time to amend our Prayer Book, we have a separate provisional rite for blessing unions.” That’s a mouthful, and our stance is an obfuscation. Our current liturgical position says, “we’re really not sure whether same-sex love is equal.”
....
Our road toward equality has been marked by half measures and deferments in The Episcopal Church. We should not defer again. To put off the decision for marriage equality may help relationships with the few remaining conservative parishes and dioceses, but such a decision could also harm our relationships with younger generations. Do we care about young adults enough to be bold for marriage equality?

Well, what's your expectation for GC this year?