Apples and Spaghetti

an editorial
by Katie Sherrod

One of the favorite conservative arguments against developing a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions is the old "slippery slope" argument.

It goes like this: "Oh sure, it starts out optional but then it will be forced down our throats, just like the ordination of women."

The problem with this argument is that it's not even comparing apples to oranges. It's more like comparing apples to spaghetti. One is canonical, the other liturgical.

The ordination of women involved a canonical change. Unlike resolutions, canons are binding. The only reason there was ever any confusion about the canon on ordination was that the House of Bishops took unilateral action at the 1977 Port St. Lucie bishops' meeting and passed the infamous so-called "conscience clause." This was after the 1976 Minneapolis General Convention at which the canon on ordination was amended to make it "equally applicable" to women and men. This "gentlemen's agreement"--because then all the bishops were men--was never adopted by the full General Convention.

But it did serve to give opponents of the ordination of women a veritable fog machine with which to fuzz up the issue. It was to clarify that the canon on ordination was binding, not permissive, that another amendment was passed at General Convention in Philadelphia.

And even so, since Philadelphia, not one thing has changed for the three bishops who still refuse to ordain or license women in their dioceses, so obviously, despite their cries of persecution, they aren't being coerced on that issue.

The issue of blessing same-sex unions is a liturgical issue, not canonical. The resolution asks for authorization of an optional liturgy for blessing of committed relationships other than marriage for inclusion in the Book of Occasional Services. In Denver in 2000, General Convention overwhelmingly recognized that committed relationships other than marriage exist in the church and that they can and should be, as stated in Resolution D039, "characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God."

Since we acknowledge these relationships exist, and we expect them to meet these standards to the glory of God, why deny those in such relationships a public rite to celebrate that reality and to support them as they strive always to be faithful to God and to each other?

A priest seeking to pastorally support a couple seeking such a rite would be able to find it. Those who choose not to use it will never even have to look at it, just as now there are liturgies in the Book of Occasional Services that priests simply never have occasion to use. But if they find they have a need, for instance, to do a public service of healing, or to commission a lay ministry, or prepare a vigil on the eve of baptism, the liturgy for doing so is there for their use, in common with other priests who have had similar needs.

For a people of common prayer, making an optional liturgy for the blessing of committed relationships other than marriage in the Book of Occasional Services available to those who choose to use it as a pastoral tool makes common sense.