Canada’s Bishops Veto Synod on Gay Blessings
WINNIPEG, Canada - Canadian Anglicans failed by the narrowest of margins last night to agree to allow their churches to bless the committed relationships of same-sex couples.
In a tense vote after nearly two days of debate at the church’s synod in Winnipeg, lay and clergy members voted in favour of a motion that would have allowed dioceses in Canada officially to authorise blessings. But the church’s bishops voted against the move by 21 votes to 19, meaning that the motion failed, because it needed to be passed by all three groups. 
There were warnings last night that some dioceses might press ahead anyway to authorise such services. Canada is one of the few countries that allows gay couples to marry.
The incoming primate of the Canadian church, Archbishop-elect Fred Hiltz, who had voted in favour of the move, said: “We have a very divided church. There will be many people who are very disappointed.”
The vote came hours after the 300 delegates attending the church’s three-yearly synod earlier took a significant step towards endorsing gay partnerships by saying they did not believe that they were in conflict with core church doctrine.
The debates saw repeated attempts by Canadian conservatives to delay such moves, or to change the size of the majority required under church rules to pass the motions, which were headed off.
The bishops last night nevertheless reissued a statement saying: “While not all bishops can conceive of condoning or blessing same-sex unions, we believe it is not only appropriate but a Gospel imperative to pray with the whole people of God, no matter their circumstances … to refuse to pray with any person is to suggest God is not with them.”
The outcome of the blessings vote, despite its close margin, will be welcomed at Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been struggling to hold the communion together in the face of opposition particularly among developing world church leaders to any accommodation with same-sex partnerships. They and many evangelicals in western churches hold that gay partnerships are sinful, unbiblical and, therefore, will always be against church doctrine.
The sister US Episcopal Church is already facing a deadline of the end of September to comply with communion demands that it should not authorise same-sex blessings or elect gay clergy and bishops and that it should set up a separate church structure for conservative parishes. It has so far refused to do so.
At the Canadian synod, speakers from both sides argued passionately either that the church would be condoning sin if it recognised gay partnerships, or that it was time to affirm them.
Some clergy in Canada’s cities, such as Toronto, where the demand has been strongest, may defy the church and conduct such services clandestinely anyway, as many clergy already do in Britain and the US. One Canadian diocese, New Westminster in Vancouver, authorised gay blessings services four years ago, the first in the world to do so.
A Toronto priest, Andrew Asbil, who said 30% of his congregation were gay, urged the synod to vote in favour: “God is calling us to move. The time is coming and it is now. We don’t need more time.”
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
I am pleased to see Canada come so close to doing something positive with such a vast entity as the Anglican Church. I am sorry that there were not enough Bishops who saw LOVE as the basis of their decision making, and chose, instead, tribal exclusion. I have long been interested in Christianity and homosexuality because of family members of my own who are often treated badly by Christians of all stripes. The Bible, of course, is often at odds with itself on various behaviors and homosexuality is no different. It is quite obvious that King David had a sexual relationship with Jonathan and that God clearly favored King David. Clearly, a good many Christians view this as a sign that it is okay for church LEADERS to carry on homosexual relations, but not for the rest of their flock. Obviously, we have examples amongst the Protestant Mega-Churches of just exactly that, and the Catholic Hierarchy would throw in pedophilia by virtue of some passage or other that I have yet to read.
But the only authority I have encountered in the Bible that speaks out against homosexuality is Paul. That we should place so much stock in Paul is interesting. Does anyone remember who it was that Christ condemned so in his preaching? A particular group? The Pharisees, perhaps? And what group did Paul belong to? The Pharisees, was it? Paul is to Christianity as Jerry Rubin is to the Yippies. Neither one really believed or understood the essence of the doctrine with which they were involved. Both betrayed the core values in an effort at self-aggrandizement. Neither is an example of who we should look to as a moral compass. Paul hated homosexuals and he hated women (interestingly, this combination almost always indicates a repressed homosexual, hating gays for tempting him, and hating women because he is compelled to be with them while finding them completely unattractive). Yes, Christ would have welcomed Paul to his congregation, but, NO! he would not have handed it over to him! Strange that we should so easily forget Peter (the Rock on him Christ would build his Church) and that Peter represented all things human. Mistakes, desires, fears, confusion…all embodied in Peter, and yet it is Peter to whom Christ looks. Why? Because mortals make mistakes, but it is Peter whose heart is good. Who is always striving to do better. And that is what we need to do: Strive to be better. Forget Paul and forget fear of the “other”. If you fear homosexuality, chances are it is because you have strong desire to participate in it. And why fear that, save for your misguided belief that it is wrong? From St. Paul (really, how can someone so full of hate be a SAINT?) to J. Edgar Hoover, we notice that the persecutors of gays are, in fact, GAY. Self-haters, treating that wound by inflicting it on others.
The dissenting Bishops are the Bishops of Paul. Of division and hate. Of the kind of tribalism that Christ fought when he admitted the gentiles to the full rites of the Jews. Inclusiveness is the crux of the break between the Jews and Christ. Where they saw themselves as a chosen people, Christ saw all people as being amongst God’s chosen.
Organized religion is a lot like what Bush calls HIS government. They want to tell others how to run their private lives when it’s NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.
Christianity has no place in the United States. It is nothing more than an opiate of the masses. You can talk all you want about Christ being about LOVE, but he was really about sexual repression, misogyny and a desert religion that didn’t give a good God Damn about the natural environment. Religions are based on a natural order and our ability to fit within it. To live within the means of the environment we inhabit. Do you know what happens when you export a desert religion to a lush, green world such as we have in the United States? Global Warming! Judaism, Christianity and Islam have no respect for nature. They view it as the servant of MAN. They hate all things fertile as a mocking of male power. Look at the way they treat women, and the way you have to be BORN AGAIN in Christ! Hah! It is theft of the power of women and their sole ability as the creators of life.
We don’t NEED religion to love one another. Often as not, it is religion that stands in the way of love. Muslims and Hindus, Jews, Christians and Muslims, Jews, Muslims and Christians and ANY religion that has a connection with the Earth or the power of the FEMININE. All these things are filled with hate. Forget religion. Sure, feel a sense of spirituality, but why try to limit it within the rules of a society two thousand years gone? Why try to limit that sense of spirituality by ANY rules? We need solidarity, not judgement, and fighting for a place in a system of judgement is a losing battle. I love and accept homosexuals and don’t need Christ’s approval to do it. I love no less for doing it on my own. I love all races and I don’t need official religious sanctions to tell me its okay. I don’t need Darwin’s minions to tell me that people are FULLY HUMAN before I can express care and concern for them.
Religion is a crock.
Gore Vidal on religion:
1. The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death. [Gore Vidal]
2. I’m a born-again atheist. [Gore Vidal]
3. Once people get hung up on theology, they’ve lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world. [Gore Vidal, from Secular Humanist Bulletin (Summer 1995)]
4. In the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Founders made it clear that this was not to be a sky-god nation with a national religion like that of England, from whom we had just separated. It is curious how little understood this amendment is–yes, everyone has a right to worship any god he chooses but he does have the right to impose his beliefs on others who do not happen to share in his superstitions and taboos.
5. This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment. [Gore Vidal, p. 79, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, 1992, Odonian Press]
6. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god’s purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home. [Gore Vidal]
7. The ideal to which John Adams subscribed–that we would be a nation of laws, not of men–was quickly subverted when the churches forced upon everyone, through supposedly neutral and just laws, their innumerable taboos on sex, alcohol, gambling. We are now indeed a nation of laws, mostly bad and certainly antihuman. [Gore Vidal]
8. The original gentlemen’s agreement between Church and State was that We the People (the State) will in no way help or hinder any religion while, absently, observing that as religion is a good thing, the little church on Elm Street won’t have to pay a property tax. No one envisaged that the most valuable real estate at the heart of most of our old cities would be tax exempt, as churches and temples and orgone boxes increased their holdings and portfolios. The quo for this huge quid was that religion would stay out of politics and not impose its superstitions on Us the People. The agreement broke down years ago. The scandalous career of the Reverend Presidential Candidate Pat Robertson is a paradigm. [Gore Vidal, The New Theocrats in “The Nation”, July 21, 1997]
9. Christianity is such a silly religion. [Gore Vidal, in Time magazine, September 28, 1992, p. 66, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt]
10. I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system. [Gore Vidal, American novelist, At Home, 1988, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt]
You can’t talk logic with “believers” because they can’t handle the idea that the very THING they place all their faith in (to make their conceptions of life, death and the notion of afterdeath palatable) may be a myth.
I feel like this: stay out my non-religion, and I’ll stay out of your religion; don’t belittle my disbelief, and I won’t ridicule your belief (except in my head). And keep your religion the fuck OUT of my government, as I insist on a government that defends your right to your choice of religion.
I have to say, though not a Christain, I always loved Jesus, thinking he was a real revolutionary, like Che, say. Then, I read about the court case in Italy, about whether Jesus was a myth, the entire story interesting, and eye opening:
http://www.luigicascioli.it/cascioli_inglese/
Christians go totally apeshit, when they hear about this- if they’ll even listen! Not even to try to convince them of anything, just to mention this news exists- they lose it. I say, hey, even if jesus never really did exist, you make his memory real, by all the energy devoted. Don’t feel bad.
Here’s some relevant information from the book Brain Sex, by Anne Moir, Ph.D.:
Homosexuality is FOUR TIMES more common in men than in women. This suggests a biological explanation for homosexuality.
It is consistent with the drastic change necessary to change turn an essentially female embryo into a male embryo. More can go wrong with men than with women.
Male or female brain organization develops in the womb, starting at about the 6th week. In weeks 1-6, the fetus is not noticeably girl or boy. But at about the 6th week, special cells produce male or female hormones.
Embryos, whether male or female, are naturally female. In female embryos, nothing drastic happens to the brain. But in males, a radical intervention is needed to change naturally female brain to a male brain.
A male fetus may have enough male hormones to trigger the development of male sex organs, but it may not be able to produce the additional male hormones necessary to push the brain into male pattern. His brain will “stay” female, so he will be born with a female brain in a male body.
In the same way, a female baby may be exposed in the womb to an accidental dose of male hormone and end up with a male brain in a female body.
My question:
As a society, we grant straight men and women the right to marry one person to whom they are sexually attracted by virtue of the way their brains are organized. Isn’t it a simple matter of justice to give gays the same right?
Perhaps I should found an institute to study the causes of heterosexuality. I know we consider these people depraved, stupid, and disgusting; but I think if we just find out enough information that can be used to wipe them out of existence, we will finally be able to simply view them as defective, and thus not only belonging at the bottom of our society, but deserving some equality as a form of pity based on our scientific consensus of their mistaken identity.
The point being, there is no “cause” of homosexuality, there is no such thing as a “male” or “female” brain, just individual brain structures, and, separately, individual people that can love people of their own sex. It is great and beautiful that people are getting together, having sex, falling in love; it doesn’t need a “cause” or an explanation, let alone one in order to justify full political and social equality.
It is too bad that once again, an institutionalize body of “men,” decreed a ruling counter to the body of its followers.
If the populace in general, by quorem, wants its church to agree to perform marriage rituals for its gay and lesbian membership, then its will should be done. Instead a few homophobic priests decide to go against the grain. They have probably also been the ones who deny that clerics molest their clergy, especially the young.
Religions are very interesting to study, but are not something to subscribe to. I’d rather believe in fairies.
Since we cannot edit our comments regardless of being invited to do so within a time limit, I must write an amendment to the previously written comment. While meant in the true sense of fantastic little creatures founded in myth, some might believe that I was using the term “fairies” derogatively. This would be an incorrect assumption.
It is appalling how easily the English language can be twisted from innocence to prejudice. And then further subverted in reference to the “christian” religion.
Religions are very interesting to study, but are not something to subscribe to. I’d rather believe in leprechauns and fairies(not the abusive nomenclature presently used in context to gays but that of the old tale tellers) than believe in some old white guy sitting on a cloud telling us what is and isn’t a sin.
By the way and touching the Bongs 4 Jesus article, if there is an old white guy sitting on a cloud; because he “created” the earth, he created all the medicinal herbs found on it, therefore they cannot be decreed illegal by humans.
Who exactly do you think you are advocating for by using “men” as your own four letter word when the subject of glbt marriage comes up? Apparently only lesbians, otherwise you wouldn’t need to gender profile, you could just say anyone against it was an ignorant, homophobic individual. Plenty of people also believe in the “goddess” nonsense, and insist on imposing this on everyone; it is just as bad.
Men are usually the most outspoken against gays and lesbians. Men compose the greater percentage of clerics in any religion. Consequently, “men” usually make the religiously based rulings against the human right of all to marry regardless of gender sameness or difference. Men historically have been those who created the rules that decree what women may or may not do. Men are also in the greater percentile for making the laws that pertain to any given society. I know of few cultures in which women make the laws at present. The Indigenous societies of the past that had female lawmakers were genocided by European immigrants.
I too, reject having any type of religious, quasi religious or cultish beliefs imposed upon me. I am an atheist.
No, none of those people are “men” they are individuals who cannot be grouped together under such criteria. But since you view things this way, you are not an ally for gay rights at all, but for lesbian and somehow “female” transexual rights; in other words LT; just putting that out there so we all know where we stand. Biological males are also the highest percentage of prison population, the highest victim rates of violence, suicide, the highest percentage of soldiers forced to kill and die across the world, the highest percentage of, in fact, people victimized for their homosexuality, both legally and informally. So putting a blanket term like “men” out there and feeling it is yours to use as you please really does marginalize male homosexuals like myself, as does your gender profiling; as if billions of individuals were somehow related inside an artificial, choiceless category which it is justifiable to spew hatred at. “Females” are also not going to be tolerant of homosexuality with any consistency; the many homosexual males I know who were violently rejected by their mothers attest to this; but, again, their stories are just tossed to the side of the road in generalizations and one-sided sympathies.
Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible but none of the so called religious leaders have the moral courage to stand up and denounce homosexuality as they are required to do so. The fact that they are living in a society like Canada / United States where religious beliefs that run counter to the officially sponsored religion (flag worship and in non-denominational God we trust) are severely curtailed is no excuse.
If these so called leaders cannot stand up for a minor tenet of their religious doctrine what hope is there that they will ever speak out against the slaughter of innocent women and children in diverse parts of the world that is perpetrated on their behalf in the name of flag worship.
People in this forum have no qualms about quoting a reprobate degenerate like Vidal but God forbid if any one mentions Fred Phelps and his www.godhatesfags.com web-site. All Phelps is doing is expounding the gospel truth. If you can overcome the hysteria created by the popular media about his works listen to what he has to say and judge for yourself.
I don’t get gay because I am not gay. I do get that gay people have by and large recognized that they are who and what they are and should not need to appologize about it to anyone.
I also get that for many whether it be for reasons of religious belief, cultural conditioning, or inherited tradition, “gay” flies in the face of their idea of what is tolerable and acceptable.
What must be most frustrating for a gay person is being catagorized based on their exceptionality rather than their comonality. I don’t mean to classify homosexuality as a disability but only to ilustrate a point.
Most of us today have learned that a “disabled” person is first and foremost a “person” with a disability. That is to say we define and recognize that person on the basis of what they and we have in common ass well as what about us is different. This has liberated both the disabled and non-disabled from pointless prejudices.
Would that homosexuals got the same break in living their lives. Because if they did then both we and they could work on the very real issues that are of concern to us all and be willing to come at it from different perspectives. Instead we waste time and energy trying to delegitimize the humanity of those “not like us” and diminish all humanity in the process.
What terrible news this is from Canada, but I reckon it’s “OK” for W to get a fake gay marriage in the White House with the “Terminator” in a pretty white dress bought by his momma, with Pat Robertson as the “lovely” flower girl for strictly parochial neo con political reasons to split the gay vote, with a close presidential contest, giving Diebold an excellent opportunity to steal the vote for the GOP.
Kalia says, “Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible…” but I just do not find anywhere where Jesus said anything against homosexuality. If it was really important, don’t you think Jesus would have had something to say about it? He said a lot about his heavenly father’s policies, but he never said the father in heaven was anti-gay.
If to be a “Christian” is to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the “Christ” then is it not incumbent upon the follower to regard the words and deeds of the Christ to the exclusion of the earthly pronouncements of lesser men who seek to control rather than enlighten?
True, Moses had something to say against it, and you can choose to believe that what Moses said and wrote is the word of God if you want to, but Jesus did not say that, and being a Christian is all about believing in Jesus, not Moses.
When his disciples asked him, “Master, what shall we do?” Jesus did not ask them what Moses said, and he did not tell them to find their answer in scripture. Instead, he said, “Love one another.” That wasn’t even in the old testament! Besides, Jesus said that he is the new testament, which kind of tosses out the old one. Do you who style yourselves Christians take Jesus Christ at his word or not?
“Love one another.” He didn’t say who to love or how to love. He simply said to love one another. What could be clearer than that? What need has anyone to interpret that straightforward statement or try to clarify it or, failing that, to spin it?
Why can’t people who claim to be Christian just follow their spiritual leader’s teachings and example instead of paying attention and coin to men of self-importance who want you to believe in them instead?
Oh ye of little faith.
Why on Earth do atheists think that any article remotely related to religion is their opportunity to insult everyone who is religious? No sense of venue or audience, that’s for sure.
Kalia, you said: “Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible but none of the so called religious leaders have the moral courage to stand up and denounce homosexuality as they are required to do so.”
Since I am a devout Christian and disagree, you might not want to present yourself as The Voice of Christendom. You’re entitled to your opinion but opinion is all it is. You are not speaking for God Himself. Might want to keep that in mind.