Days after the Supreme Court granted constitutional protection to gay marriage, Episcopalians gave their blessing Wednesday to church weddings for same-sex couples.
The denomination's landmark vote, at the Episcopal General Convention in Salt Lake City, came 12 years after the church made history by electing its first openly gay bishop.
Same-sex weddings will be allowed after Nov. 1. But in a compromise with conservatives, clergy can refuse to perform same-sex services and bishops can prohibit the ceremonies in their diocese, The Washington Post reports.
Among the changes to church laws on marriage, gender-specific language will be dropped. "Husband" and "wife" will be replaced with "the couple."
"But don't expect sweeping changes across the entire denomination anytime soon," George Conger, an Episcopal priest who has written about church issues for two decades, wrote in the Post. He said the changes "likely won't take place in more conservative parts of the church, like Dallas, Albany and Orlando."
Priests in many dioceses already have been allowed to perform civil same-sex weddings with a modified prayer service.
Bishops overwhelmingly endorsed the changes Tuesday, and the voting body of clergy and lay members followed suit Wednesday.
On the eve of the historic vote, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion that oversees the Episcopal Church, expressed "deep concern about the stress for the Anglican Communion" by changing "the definition of marriage in the canons so that any reference to marriage as between a man and a woman is removed."
He said the 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."
The Very Rev. Brian Baker of Sacramento, who chaired the committee that drafted the changes, said the revisions come after nearly 40 years of difficult discussions in the 1.9-million-member church, which is based in New York.
"We have learned to not only care for, but care about one another," Baker 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."
Contributing: Associated Press
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