A very interesting last day on the floor today, especially considering my experience yesterday. After worship, the Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold called a joint session of the houses, during which he essentially told us that we needed to pass something that addressed the “refrain” request of the Windsor Report regarding elections to the episcopate for people in same-sex relationships. The final form as introduced in both houses is here.
It became interesting when we adjourned back into separate house meetings. A procedural motion had to be introduced that would allow us to open up discussion on a subject we had already discussed and voted down (See Tuesday’s post.) Immediately, the extreme right (hereafter abbreviated as ER) started trying to make procedural barriers to us reconsidering. For more on that, see later on in the post.
In any case, we considered the motion. Presiding Bishop-Elect Schori asked to address the house. In her address, she told us how much she did not like the resolution, but felt that it was important to be passed without amendment. She committed herself to the GLBT community but told us she needed this in order to open up a space for communication within the Anglican Communion. This changed the entire tone of the house. After a lot of soul-searching and some debate, we did this at great personal cost to many members of the house. It was a fine hour for the diverse center. Many deputies rose to express anger and frustration at having been manipulated from the extremes the previous day. (See Nick Knisely's blog for more on this.)
What has amazed me the most today has been what I have to perceive as the utter hypocrisy of those on the extreme right. Those on the extreme left can be difficult, bull-headed, etc., but the things I have seen coming out of the other side in the last day is truly amazing in it's duplicity. Even the more conservative members of our deputation were disgusted by the time we left.
Yesterday, the right was a well-oiled procedural machine. Deputies moved from deputation to deputation during the entire convention. They even had people in the gallery doing communications with the "outside." Despite all the rhetoric about wanting the Episcopal Church to “uphold the Windsor Report,” when it came down to it they were the ones that called for a vote by orders (making the legislation more difficult to pass) and then voted AGAINST the Windsor resolutions, claiming that they were not sufficient. Today they tried everything they could do with parliamentary procedure to avoid reconsideration of the Windsor resolution, they again moved for a vote by orders, and I’m not sure of it, but I believe they voted against it despite the strengthened language. There’s no logical sense here – even if a resolution is not everything you want, if goes in your direction, you would think you would take it. It would only make sense if even though you claimed you wanted the Episcopal Church to comply, you didn't REALLY want it to.
The answer to all this came literally within a couple of minutes of us passing the resolution from the House of Bishops. Two of the ER bishops released a statement saying that we had failed to comply with Windsor, that they were willing to do so, and that they were the faithful remnant of the Episcopal Church.
It is obvious to even a casual observer that this moment had been scripted since before the convention. My suspicion is that the ER had planned their entire legislative agenda in order to defeat the Windsor resolutions so that they could execute their schism at the most opportune time, claiming that the Episcopal Church had shown we had no desire to stay in the Anglican Communion. They never intended to stay with us no matter what we passed.
Unfortunately for them, the raft of Windsor legislation actually DOES IMHO appear to meet the basic requirements of the Windsor Report. Canterbury has released a guarded, but thankful statement. We have taken the moral high ground by conceding more than most thought we could or would. We’ll see how this all turns out, but I am very hopeful at this point.
However, this was not a time for celebration. This compromise was bought at great cost for many in the GLBT community. There are a lot of broken hearts. I hope that the Anglican Communion will respond in an appropriate way that will have made this all worth it.
David+
I've mixed feelings. Something needed to be offered for I am concerned about others outside TEC as I've noted these last days and staying in the game is necessary for that; I don't think this was our best offering.
I have argued all along for general moratoria to end the scapegoating/marginalizing mechanism and to respond to Windsor with a firm willingness to remain in communion both with our sister Churches and the lgbt faithful and at the same time refusal to scapegoat any longer.
This resolution comes closer than A161 to that--I'll wait and see how this is applied to heterosexuals up for consent.
Nonetheless, I don't see that an equal cross was thrust upon all Episcopalians in this resolution. I am leary of those who speak of doing things at great personal cost to others. What was your own personal cost in passing this resolution? Not the cost of others you know, but to you as a person?
A statement honestly recognizing that our unity presently depends on lgbt Christians being treated this way would have been appropriate, in fact, should have been attached to the resolution. It helps us recognize that in passing this piece that we are also offering up fellow members and placing a cross upon them, such a paragraph would have helped us see as in a mirror the brokenness in the Body and the dividing walls between lgbt and straight Christians in TEC.
As I wrote yesterday, "It is clear that lgbt folks were repeatedly being asked to take up their crosses by others who were unwilling to join them in the cross they recommended to us."
I do hope the new Presiding Bishop and all bishops who passed it spend some time footwashing, perhaps in the Tenderloin here where the queer homeless youth hang out and hustle just to survive.
We will move forward, but this will impair our ability in our own communities to evangelize as it impairs the ability of bishops to shepherd us as full icons of unity, for the unity purchased was at our expense. This is certainly no time for celebration or feelings of relief or declarations about this being your church, for it God's Church, and some of them are deeply hurt by this.
Posted by: *Christopher | June 23, 2006 at 07:38 PM
The personal cost to me was not very high. As I said in the last paragraph, the real cost is to my GLBT brothers and sisters and I recognize that. I actually thought we should have used the language of "persons living in same-sex relationships" instead of the watered-down language so that we could be clear about who was being asked to make the sacrifice.
I do not believe this is a permanent situation. What it does is to provide space for a conversation. Why would the Anglican Communion sit down at the table with us if we could not promise that we would not create another crisis while we were getting the conversation underway? (I know we can debate who caused this crisis until the cows come home - but that's how the WR reads.)
It's a pause - I'm SURE it will come back up at GC2009 after Lambeth 2008.
David+
Posted by: FrSimmons | June 24, 2006 at 03:23 PM