Posted on 07/06/2015 8:34:31 AM PDT by NorthMountain
SALT LAKE CITY — The Episcopal Church has completed its embrace of gay rights, changing church law to allow same-sex religious marriages throughout the denomination, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
The new policy won overwhelming approval from the top Episcopal legislative body Wednesday, following decades of debate and conflict. It came 12 years after the denomination blazed a trail by electing the first openly gay bishop.
"To finally get to this day is an incredible moment," said the Rev. Cynthia Black, of Morristown, New Jersey, a lesbian who has been campaigning for gay acceptance for years. "It is the beginning. It is not the end. There will still be people excluded, but at least we've gotten to this point."
The vote came in Salt Lake City at the Episcopal General Convention. Many dioceses in the New York-based church of nearly 1.9 million members already had been allowing their priests to perform civil same-sex weddings, using a trial prayer service to bless the couple. Still, the church hadn't changed its own laws on marriage until Wednesday.
...
The changes were approved 173-27 by the House of Deputies, a voting body of clergy and lay people. The deputies also approved a gender-neutral prayer service for marriage on a 184-23 vote. The House of Bishops had given authorization for both measures a day earlier.
The measures take effect the first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 29.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. wing of the Anglican Communion, an 80 million-member global fellowship of churches. Ties among Anglicans have been strained since Episcopalians in 2003 elected Bishop Gene Robinson, who lived openly with his male partner, to lead the Diocese of New Hampshire. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at mlive.com ...
its a Black Day...for the Episcopal Church
This is why the Episcopal Church in America is a dying denomination. They have been bleeding members for 20 years and currently overstate their membership by about double, if actual church attendance is any guide.
They will have to answer in the end.
Episcopals not into the teachings of that “Jesus” guy or that “Bible” thingy I guess. Much less “God.”
I am sure their new worship of L. Ron Hubbard or whomever will be most satisfactory to the members.
holy matrimony is the joining of God with a man and a woman.
No human can FORCE God to join in a union. What an utter joke.
Revelation 3:16.
I work in downtown SLC, and saw these idiots for the past couple of weeks walking downtown in their ridiculous purple shirts. Sorry, but most of their “clergy” look like faggots and dykes who just came out of the closet.
These people (Leadership) are true reprobates!
“Isn’t that stylish” Clint Eastwood
The road to Hell is wide, and getting wider.
The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. They have a pull-down menu on that page labeled "What We Believe". You'll find there what the Episcopal Church claims to believe. In particular is the claim: "As Episcopalians, we are followers of Jesus Christ, and both our worship and our mission are in Christ’s name. In Jesus, we find that the nature of God is love, and through baptism, we share in his victory over sin and death. "
Luckily our founding fathers believed that free market applied to churches and did not believe in pumping money into old dying churches. Destructive Capitalism applies to Churches as well as the markets. The Gospel will aways find away through the free market.
Once an Episcopalian, I remember a priest telling me it was the “thinking man’s” church. I left in 1980 because of what they were thinking, and saying. Never looked back.
The Bible...
Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
5.56mm
What would you expect of the church of King Horny VIII?
You mean the rainbow brick road to hell?
Ha! Yes, indeed.
Why do so few people abide by it? If Jesus is the rightful King, and His commands are in the Bible, then anyone who doesn’t listen and obey is in rebellion.
The Church I attend left “the Episcopal Church” several years ago over just such a matter.....the “gay” bishop fiasco.
It is now part of the Anglican Communion.
Freegards!
The Episcopalians own many beautiful buildings. It would be nice if homosexuals would be satisfied with having these available for their ceremonies and would leave Catholic churches alone ... but they won’t.
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