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WASHNGTON D.C.: Episcopal Diocese OKs Same-Sex Blessings
By Julia Duin
The Washington Times
January 29, 2006
The Episcopal Diocese of Washington voted yesterday to approve same-sex blessing ceremonies at its annual convention at the Washington National Cathedral, while the Diocese of Virginia, meeting in Richmond, passed an omnibus resolution that touted unity.
The Washington diocese has unofficially allowed same-sex ceremonies for years, and it has had a same-sex rite on the books since June 2004.
However, that rite has been put on hold until a meeting of the Episcopal General Convention in June in Ohio, when the denomination's future stance on homosexual clergy and same-sex blessings will be decided.
The Virginia diocese's resolution, passed in the closing minutes of its annual council at the Richmond Marriott, promised to "seek the highest degree of communion possible" with Christians with whom it disagrees.
The diocese's 90,000 members, it said, "would make every effort to cooperate as co-laborers within the Anglican Communion," the 70-million-member body to which the Episcopal Church belongs.
A majority of the world's Anglican bishops have partially or completely sundered ties with the Episcopal Church over its 2003 consecration of openly homosexual New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. However, the resolution only generally referred to the controversy and biblical authority that has beset the denomination.
Attempts to get the Virginia diocese to take a stand on such issues fell flat. One amendment specifying marriage is "between one man and one woman" failed 169-274.
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