Motion Regarding Same-Sex Blessings of the 2006 Diocesan Synod
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MOVED BY: Kevin Farris
SECONDED BY: Harold Munn
That this Synod memorialize General Synod:
a) to affirm the conclusion of the St Michael's report that the matter of same-sex blessings is not a "church-dividing" issue;
b) and urges General Synod to enable the sacrament of marriage to be extended to persons who are in committed same-sex relationships.Kevin Farris:
Bishop, you observed in your charge that parish viability and diocesan
restructuring had been studied and reported on for decades; you said
the time for action had come. If anything has been the subject of more
debate and more reports, surely it is sexuality. Here, too, it is time
to do something. It is my honour and privilege to move this motion on
behalf of our parish council, which endorsed it unanimously.
Thirty years ago, the House of Bishops launched a study of
homosexuality, which led to their statement of 1979. The youth
delegates will not remember 1979, and others may have trouble
recollecting it ... allow me to help. A conservative minority
government had just taken office, everyone was a bit worried about
developments in Iran, and gas prices were soaring past a dollar ... per
gallon. At any rate, the bishops declared that "homosexual persons, as
children of God, [had] a full and equal claim with all other persons,
upon the love, acceptance, concern and pastoral care of the Church." At
the same time, the bishops decided that same-sex relationships were not
to be blessed by the church lest they be confused with holy matrimony.
St John's Victoria has long been accepting by instinct, but it is only
now that we are trying to become so consciously and deliberately. We
have a significant number of lesbian and gay members. Many are in
committed relationships, some are legally married, some are raising
children. We serve the church in a wide range of roles: from staff
member to verger, from chalice bearer to chorister to warden to Sunday
School teacher. St John's is providing space to the newly formed Vancouver
Island chapter of Integrity.
For years General Synod and the Lambeth Conference have been urging
that the church listen to the experience of gay and lesbian Christians.
Those who do so will hear not a few stories of hurt and rejection:
stories of people being thrown out of the churches where they had been
raised, or of being made to feel so unwelcome that they left the church
for years; of people for whom Christ died being made to feel invisible
and unrecognized in the church, which is his body.
They will also hear stories of courage and love and great faithfulness.
Of people who, rejected by the church, have continued to seek to follow
Christ and to build Christian fellowship; of people who, without any
support or recognition from church or state or, too often, even their
own families, have formed relationships of mutual love and support that
have outlasted more than a few church marriages. By what right do we
withhold a blessing?
The time has come for us to recognize that we cannot claim to offer
"full and equal ... love, acceptance, concern and pastoral care" while
we deny access to the sacrament of marriage. In Canada, the State has
outstripped the Church and extended civil marriage to same-sex couples.
Some Christian and other faith communities have already followed suit.
"Full and equal"
concern would not deny same-sex couples a marriage preparation class.
"Full and equal" pastoral care would not consist of sending such
couples to City Hall to be married.
The first part of our motion affirms our belief that people of good
will and sincere faith can disagree on this issue. We may believe one
another to be wrong or misguided, but human sexuality is not so central
to the Christian faith that any decision the church might make around
same-sex relationships should require us to divide. The Primate's
Theological Commission, representing a broad range of opinion, came
unanimously to this conclusion and we should endorse their view.
This does not mean that there is no division; there is. Instead, it
means that, so far as it lies with us, we will reject schism and love
and welcome those who disagree with us. We cannot control how others
respond to what we say and do, but we will not break fellowship over this
issue.
Finally, Bishop, you referred in your charge to the "prelates and
pundits", and their declarations of "impaired" or even "broken"
communion. I am neither prelate nor pundit, so I make no declaration
but rather an
observation: within our own parishes, as long as some of us are denied
full sacramental inclusion and equality, we have "impaired communion"
within our own diocese. It is time for this Synod to remedy this.
Thank you.
Links about Same-Sex Blessing
