Friend, we stayed and fought for thirty years.
In hindsight, we saw this coming when the Prayer Book revision was undertaken, back in the late 60s/early 70s. (Gee - do we see a pattern developing here? That's when the Catholics ran into trouble too. Those $)*)%^( hippies have a lot to answer for.) Then the ordination of women, then abortion "rights", then homosexual "rights" . . . it's an accelerating train.
The orthodox in ECUSA were able to ignore the trend of the national church for a long time. So long as ones own parish was relatively orthodox and the bishop was willing to leave the orthodox alone, you could worship, keep your head down, and ignore what was going on at the national level. (It was impossible for the isolated orthodox parishes to have ANY effect on the doings of the national church - no leverage.)
The final straw for most of us was when (due to radicalization of the seminaries and the continuing efforts of the national leadership) the loony-left influence got down to the diocesan and then the parish level. This happened in our old parish - a relatively laissez-faire bishop was replaced by a radical leftist, who started agitating for his causes (including the radical homosexual agenda). Naturally, the parish priests who were lukewarm on doctrine wanted to "get in good" with the new bishop. So now the wolf is in the fold down at the level of individual churches.
Because of something called the "Denis Canon" that was rammed through at the national level, the national church now owns most of the parish property. So again, lukewarm parishes will not rock the boat for fear of losing their building, the cemetery where their grandparents are buried, the priest's retirement fund, etc. Fighting the national church for the property would be so expensive (even if a particular state like California gives the parish some legal ground to stand on) that most vestries hesitate to pour out the hundreds of thousands of dollars they would need to fight the national church. . . good money after bad.
If a diocese has a liberal bishop that has bought into the party line, the individual parishes are to put it bluntly, screwed. The only choice is to leave individually or to leave as a parish and leave all the property behind.
If the Anglican Communion decides to throw out the ECUSA, that's another whole story. A good legal argument can be made that that will de-legitimate the national church, and individual dioceses and parishes will then be able to take their stuff and go. But we have young teenage children, we cannot wait around for this dispute to play out. It will take YEARS, we may not live to see the end of it.
So we fled, like so many others. Quite a number have gone to conservative Lutheran and Presbyterian churches - we were "high Anglican", so we went to the Catholics. Thank the Lord the Catholics are still willing to hold the line.
We fled the Episcopal Church, too, a number of years ago. 'Fingers in the dike' we did, but they just ignored the conservative parishes, biding their time, pushing their agenda. We are joining the Catholic Church, too. And THIS says it all, to me: "Rev. V. Gene Robinson" -- The V stands for VICKI. gag.
"the wolf is in the fold down at the level of individual churches....Because of something called the "Denis Canon" that was rammed through at the national level, the national church now owns most of the parish property...."
Truly we wrestle not against flesh and blood but principalities, evil in high places. May God's people humble themselves so that God may hear from Heaven and heal this land. Putting on the Whole Armor of God, with tears in eyes, I urge you to CONTINUE THE FIGHT, the battle may be turning now that the Truth gets out on the Web via VR, blogs, talk radio, etc... Joshua chapter 1.
FReegards....