BREAKING: C056 Hits HOB- Live Blog by Matt Kennedy

Chair: I want to start with an apology. I apologize that the editor TEC newspaper got it wrong. Inaccurate headline, we will get it fixed

Applause

PLM: Committee 13 C056: Recommend adopt this is a sub.

Smith: we had in our committee a number of issues around blessing and SSM and we put them together for our consideration and this is now an omnibus resolution

Whalon: Let us postpone until we consider B012.

Second

Motion fails

If this passes can we dispense with B012?

Chair: If that is the decision of the House

Ely: Many of us believe that what is contained in this resolution would satisfy our concerns and especially those that were part of B012. It is worth our support.

Lee: I support this. We worked hard on it with an ear to concerns expressed in this house. It calls for creation of rites and pastoral response and it addresses our need to remain engaged. It defines us and helps us stay in relationship.

Wolf: I rise to speak in favor of this but I want to make this observation from yesterday’s discussion. Sometimes it takes little to take a proposal that we can all agree on to something that divides us. Let us express a generous orthodoxy. Sometimes we give our brothers and sisters very little room to operate. I would ask that this majority which is substantial use great care in using its authority.

Raab: I propose an amendment to the third resolve and it is word for word Bishop Parsley’s minority report

Raab: I believe the minority report echoes my own concerns and it is clearer. The resolution opens a wider door than we are ready to do at this time.

Charles: this limits us to only celebrating these things where it is legally possible. The amendment limits our ability to respond pastorally. In my state, people came from all over the country to avail themselves of the legal rights we enjoyed. The same will happen with this. People will come from all over and then return to your diocese so you will feel it yourselves.

Mathes: We had a really unique thing if we were really lucky there was a period of time we you could get married. This is not a generous amendment

Adams: Does “pastoral” include or contain liturgy?

Smith: the committee considered including the term “liturgical responses” only. We chose to include only “pastoral” thinking that would allow for a broad range of responses

Robinson”: I would speak against the amendment. By using the word “may” it implies that a particular bishop does not have to do anything. This is a reality coming to a diocese near you soon. So I am arguing that all of us are about providing generous pastoral responses to those we serve and would agree with Mathes that pastoral response has no boundaries

Howard: the propose d amendment recognizes the special needs and occasions where SSU's are now legal and many of us who do not agree with bishops in these diocese are appreciative of the needs these changes in law require. What we do not need is a res instructing us to be pastorally generous or implying that there would be times when we would not be. We recognize that the reason for this amendment is to give dioceses breadth to do what is necessary so I support it

Sauls: I oppose the amendment. It relies implicitly on a bishops reading of the rubric on pg 13 of the BCP. There is a preferable amendment in my opinion that will address these concerns

Andrus: I oppose the amendment. We as bishops will be making pastoral responses to those people who were married and then had the right to marry taken away. I would like to have your support in doing that

Maryland: I rise against het amendment. I am reticent to speak in contradiction to my brother from Maryland. People wonder how we can disagree and still be colleagues. Hopefully we model that. Generosity for a few, however, is not generosity. All the rules should apply to all of us

Theuner: The confusion here is that the clergy serve as officers of the state. This subjects clergy to the state and we don’t want to get involved in that.

Missed speaker

Question called

Debate ended.

Voting on amendment:

The amendment fails--one abstention

Debate continues on original res

Scott: I would like to make an amendment. Clergy under the direction of their bishop may provide continuous pastoral responses...

…refers to D039

Chair: that will be difficult to respond to previous resolutions--why don’t you resubmit it when written

Smith: We specifically chose not to refer to earlier legislation that had been a cause of division among us.

????: today as bishop of SE Florida I get many who come to SE Florida for refuge and they are married in other places and I really back this res because it deals with a problem I face all the time. I am tired off discriminating against my people

Whalon: Offers amendment to delete certain words. We have passed a resolution in which we will converse with a number of scholars to get ourselves ready to pass such rites. We are not ready at this point. A lot of theology over the last thirty years has been done by liturgists and not by wider theological consideration. So my amendment would call for a collection of same sex resources. Collecting is a good way to go so they may be considered but not formally. If we pass this we will be short-circuiting our own process. This is something that needs to happen as a teaching office

Jalineck: I rise to oppose this amendment. Given that the BCP is het most theological document that we have that we agree on and since we are shaped by it. I think we do not know what we believe until we try to pray for it. That is when we become clearer on what we think in larger ways. Lex orandi, lex credenti.

Alexander: I also rise to speak against the amendment. We did not wait for the theological committee to finish its work before celebrating communion. This resolution has a good balance between theological work and liturgical action. When we do theological analyses we generally begin with the actual texts of the rites we are going o perform. The great thing is we can do both at the same time.

Missed speaker

Chane: I speak against this amendment. When we gathered in MN two GC’s past, it was difficult for us to move forward in the creation of liturgies. We have not done that. It is now the right time to have these formal discussions and present before GC in three years the kind of discussion we must have

Rowe: I call the question

Debate ended

Voting on Whalon’s amendment

Amendment fails

Scott: the resolve amendment I was going to offer is: Resolved that clergy under bishop may generous pastor res to meet needs of members of this church who seek support of Gods blessing n their marriages and other relationships….reading too fast.

Second

Scott: this relates to the issue that was in our conversations when we were talking about B012 and the canonical concerns about that--that takes away the idea of the bishop promulgating this.

Fry: the KJV says that agag walked delicately before being hewn assunder. I am walking delicately but in this amendment are we not talking about fiddling with the Prayer book definition of marriage. How can we do that in violation of the prayer book which is a constitutional manner? We have deposed bishops for this. How can we permit people to do these things by resolution?

Love: If I could have clarification on the amendment: Could this mean that clergy could do this only at the permission of the bishops and otherwise they could not

Chair: well the bishop is the ordinary

Someone moves to postpone discussion of amendment

Motion passes

Back to the original

Daniels: in light of what wolf said about the tyranny of the majority, I believe we need to hear every voice and not an ominous silence from those who disagree. I need your voice so that I can be informed before I vote

P. Beckwith: I appreciate what my brother said. I rise in opposition to the whole mater. And I was thinking, why waste my time. Why waste your time. I was thinking it was a pearl and swine thing. I believe this is another clear instance that we are allowing our church to be shaped by the secular culture rather than our God-give mission to shape culture. Since I believe this takes us further apart from Windsor I would call for a roll call vote.

More than 5 support this call
Sauls: 36 yrs ago our church responded to secular culture by allowing divorced persons to be remarried even though it contradicted what we believed the teaching of the bible and of Jesus, We did so even though it contradicted our understanding of sexual ethics at the time. We refrained these last six years out of grace. Our gays and lesbians are asking nothing more than grace and mercy. I know for a fact that the vast majority of Anglicans around the world enjoy the same pastoral exception we do--that divorced persons may marry. It is true in Canterbury and in Nigeria. I agree that scripture is our final concern. The one that concerns me is that the scribes and Pharisees tie heavy burdens for others to bear but are not willing to lift a finger to help them. It is time to lift the hypocrisy

Alabama: I move to postpone the entire matter until we have the enter thing before us

Motion carries. We will take it upon when we have the text…