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Anglican Essentials Canada Responds to the Passage of Bill C-38
Anglican Essentials Canada, a coalition representing thousands of orthodox Anglicans across Canada, is deeply troubled by the recent vote by Canadian Parliament to legalize same-sex marriage without specific provision for the protection of the religious freedoms of those Canadians who cannot in good conscience support an enactment of Bill C-38.
Janet Epp Buckingham, director of law and public policy with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada said in a presentation to the Legislative Committee that "Parliament has an obligation to ensure that the fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion are adequately protected before proceeding with legislating the redefinition of marriage." The current wording of C-38 does little by way of offering assurance to Canadian Christians that their basic civil liberties will be protected under the purview of this bill.
Anglican Essentials Canada has serious reservations about pieces of legislation - such as Bill C-38 - which threaten the civil liberties that are enjoyed by all Canadians and calls on Parliament to urgently and immediately seek out ways to protect honest expressions of the classical Christian faith. We see this as the only course of action that would uphold our fundamental freedom of conscience and religion set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Furthermore, we ask God's forgiveness for failing to uphold a consistent, biblical and moral standard on this and many other issues. This development is yet another sign of the failure of the church, including the Anglican Church of Canada, to faithfully preach the whole counsel of Holy Scripture. We grieve for our nation and we grieve as the church because this highlights our drift from the truth, the very drift that has caused the Primates and now the Anglican Consultative Council to discipline the Anglican Church of Canada.
As an organization, we stand firm in our commitment to the canonical authority of Holy Scripture, and the tradition of the Christian Church that regards marriage as a union between one man and one woman, which is an earthly representation of the relationship that exists between Jesus Christ and His Church and was confirmed even as Jesus performed his first miracle in Cana of Galilee.
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