NEWS STORY: Canadian Anglican prelate will defer blessing same-sex unions

c. 1999 Religion News Service VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ The Anglican bishop of Vancouver, acknowledging pressure, says he will postpone blessing same-sex unions in his diocese until at least 2001. Bishop Michael Ingham, who is emerging as an international leader of the pro-gay movement in the Anglican church, spent eight months consulting with church leaders […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ The Anglican bishop of Vancouver, acknowledging pressure, says he will postpone blessing same-sex unions in his diocese until at least 2001.

Bishop Michael Ingham, who is emerging as an international leader of the pro-gay movement in the Anglican church, spent eight months consulting with church leaders in Canada after delegates to the diocese’s synod became the first in Canada to vote in favor of formally blessing same-sex relationships.


However, since last May’s vote passed by only a narrow margin _ 179 to 170 _ Ingham told a packed news conference Sunday (Jan. 17) he will override the synod majority and his own pro-gay conscience and withhold approval unless delegates endorse same-sex blessing ceremonies in a”clear and substantial”vote two years from now.

Although Ingham believed there was not yet a consensus in the Anglican Church to move forward on same-sex blessings, he said,”It is a constant wonder to me that gay Christians have kept faith with the church these many years despite the church’s unwillingness to affirm their relationships, their commitments, their love.” The top leader in the 700,000-member Anglican Church of Canada, Primate Michael Peers, said he approved of the Vancouver bishop’s”responsible”move to delay a decision and promote further dialogue through a five-point program which urges parishioners to discuss the emotional, Biblical and legal aspects of homosexuality.

Peers said it is his role to support the church’s highest governing body, the General Synod, and the majority in the Canadian House of Bishops, who in 1998 said the church is not ready to bless same-sex unions, and asked homosexuals seeking ordination to remain celibate.

The 800 bishops in the 60 million-member worldwide Anglican communion who attended last year’s Lambeth conference in Britain took a similar approach. The issue has sharply divided Anglicans in the United States, Canada, and Europe as well as Britain, spiritual center of the communion.

However, in some dioceses in the Episcopal Church _ the U.S. branch of the Anglican communion _ priests already bless same-sex relationships.

The Anglican Church of Canada is taking a more cautious approach to homosexual rights than the 800,000-member United Church of Canada, which voted 10 years ago in favor of endorsing same-sex unions and ordaining homosexuals.

Ingham, however, said he hopes the passage of two years will work in his favor, because he believes there is an air of inevitability among young people in society and the Anglican church to supporting committed relationships between people of the same gender.”I think it’s going to happen. I don’t know if it’s going to happen in two years’ time. But it seems to me the trend is clear and Anglicanism is going that way,”he said.


Peers, however, despite saying he won’t express his personal views on same-sex unions, also drew a parallel between the church’s current extended discussion over homosexuality and the 70-year debate over whether to re-marry divorced people.

In an interview from Toronto, Peers said it took until 1967 before the Anglican Church of Canada allowed divorced people to remarry in the church _ after their numbers and acceptance in society had grown.

Similarly, he said he thought there will be a gradual movement toward”gay- positive”attitudes in the Anglican church in Canada, the United States, South Africa and some European countries.

Still, in the next 50 years, Peers admitted he would be surprised if same-sex relationships were accepted within all regions of the Anglican communion. Nor, he said, did he believe they would be endorsed within the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox church, or in major evangelical denominations.

DEA END TODD

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