Badpuppy Gay Today

Monday, 05 May 1997

Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the midst of a nationwide debate about Hawaii's role in same-sex marriages, a conference of U.S. Episcopal Church leaders has voted 19-11 to extend spousal benefits, including insurance, to employees of the church who are living in homosexual relationships.

Hawaiian reporters and other observers were quick to note that the debates among members of the church's Executive Council that preceded the decision were not unlike those which have been raging in the Hawaiian legislature and the popular press for months. The Episcopalian delegates spent more time on this single issue, it was reported, than on any other, although Pamela Chinnis, president of the Episcopal House of Deputies, says the topic has only been one of many "sexuality issues" currently facing Episcopal clergy.

Among such issues is the attempt by the church to originate a specific rite to bless same-sex unions. This issue will be brought to the fore at the General Convention to be held in July in Philadelphia.

Prior to that Convention, a liturgical commission will create a format for such a ceremony, being careful, according to Chinnis,"to call it something other than marriage."

Another gay issue facing the July convention will be the ordination of a gay man who is involved in a same-sex relationship. Ten bishops of the church had previously hurled charges of heresy against Bishop Walter Righter for his having ordained a gay male. At a meeting of the church's court, however, the heresy charges against Righter were dismissed. He was, as one gay Episcopalian joked, "Righter than his accusers."

There is no law, according to Pamela Chinnis, which prohibits the ordination of gay men or lesbians. "We try to have as few laws against things as possible," she said, "it's called the Anglican way of doing things," and the Episcopal intention is "to have very broad parameters, so the church can encompass everybody."

There will also be a resolution making it mandatory for all Episcopal dioceses to recognize the ordination of women, says Chinnis. A 1976 ruling permits such ordinations, although according to the Episcopal House of Deputies president, there are still four Episcopal bishops who refuse to acknowledge women as priests. At present there are seven female bishops working within the framework of the U.S. church.

Though controversy was rife at the Honolulu conference, the theme of the occasion was a celebration of the life and service of the church's presiding bishop, who, before being elected to head the U.S. church, was a Honolulu bishop. He is now at the end of his 12-year term and the choosing of his successor will be another point of business at the Philadelphia convention.