Columbus, Ohio – Episcopal delegates Tuesday snubbed Anglican leaders’ request to temporarily stop electing openly gay bishops, a vote that further frustrated conservatives in the American church and could hasten a break with Anglicans worldwide.
Wrenching debate over the proposed moratorium on gay bishops stretched over two days in the House of Deputies, a legislative body of more than 800 clergy and lay leaders.
Top Anglican officials had asked the Episcopalians for a temporary ban to calm the outrage among conservatives over the election three years ago of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who lives with his longtime male partner.
In a complex balloting system, a majority of deputies voted against a measure that would have urged dioceses to refrain from electing gay bishops.
Conservatives complained the measure stopped short of a moratorium, but supporters argued it would have set a moral standard for the church and would have signaled that the American denomination understood the concerns of Anglican leaders.
The other policymaking body in the church, the House of Bishops, planned to take up that measure, but if it passed it would still need the approval of the deputies who have now rejected it.
Canon Martyn Minns, a conservative leader and rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., said the deputies’ vote showed the impossibility of reconciling Anglicans with different views about the Bible and homosexuality.
“It’s too hard. It’s a gap too wide,” he said. “Unhappily, this decision seems to show that the Episcopal Church has chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Anglican Communion.”
But the Rev. Susan Russell of Integrity, the Episcopal gay and lesbian caucus, said she felt proud that the church was willing to affirm its commitment to fight injustice.
“The vote says we’re not willing to make sacrificial lambs of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers and that has to leave me feeling pretty grateful and very proud,” she said.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, the fellowship of churches with roots that trace back to the Church of England.
