I am pleased that it did not pass, though I must admit to being surprised. It was only the house of Bishops that stopped it - laity and clergy voted in favor. I will be watching the fallout with interest.
And immediately nearly every Bishop of a major metropolitan diocese released a statement that they would ignore the decision. I don't believe this was settled any more than the UMC controversy. The homosexual lobby is too militant to let it go when they were so close to victory. Interestingly, a local TEC church which proudly marketed itself as the destination church for LGBT and the first church to join Integrity in Va. is closing at the end of this month. There's some kind of lesson about the terminal trajectory of these things to be taken from that.
Q: In 2016, the church’s General Synod will be presented with a resolution changing the marriage canon to allow same-sex marriage. Is this a cause for concern? A: That’s a really tough question. Well, it’s got to be a cause for concern because this is a particularly tough issue to deal with…And, I hope that two or three things happen: I hope that the church, in its deliberations, is drawing on the wealth of its contribution to the Anglican Communion and the worldwide church, to recognize…the way it works and how it thinks, to recognize the importance of its links. And that, in its deliberations, it is consciously listening to the whole range of issues that are of concern in this issue. We need to be thinking; we need to be listening to the LGBT voices and to discern what they’re really saying because you can’t talk about a single voice anymore than you can with any other group. There needs to be listening to Christians from around the world; there needs to be listening to ecumenical partners, to interfaith partners. There needs to be a commitment to truth in love and there needs to be a commitment to being able to disagree in a way that demonstrates that those involved in the discussions love one another as Christ loves us. That’s the biggest challenge, that in what we do, we demonstrate that love for Christ in one another. https://www.anglicanjournal.com/welby-explains-gays-and-violence-in-africa-remarks/ The challenge is as real today as it was 3 years ago. If one more bishop had voted in favour and one more abstained, it would have been a majority in three houses. Effectively it was only defeated on a blink. It will be observed with interest in Australia as we are about to have discussions in the area, though at the moment there is not clear idea what would be required to do it, or even if it were possible for Australia give the fundamental declarations of our Constitution. I don't think this issue will go away anytime soon, anywhere in the west. The broad consensus amongst the secular world, and indeed a good number of those who do go to Church is that this is a Social Justice issue. The conservative voice is yet to convince people that it is other than a social justice issue. We have not been clear about the nature and purpose of marriage in a way that affirms social justice for the LGBTI community. If we can;t find a way to do that it will be a Kentucky Derby (a race to the bottom of the bucket of KFC!)
Since the TEC vindictively refuses to sell to traditional Anglicans we should organize some kind of front to purchase these churches. Perhaps pose as Unitarians or something suitably wacky.
Actually, my colleague about an hour up the road just got a lease on a TEC church. They were in the situation of having three buildings from three different periods of the church's history. They still use the two newest buildings but they leased the oldest one to him. It doesn't have much in the way of ancillary facilities but it does have indoor toilets, which is an improvement over his previous location! I was surprised it came about; I'm guessing they didn't bother to run the arrangement by the diocesan chancery.