Pondering a Blessing for Same-sex Couples
Leaders of the Episcopal Church meeting in Indianapolis for the church’s annual general conference appear “poised to adopt a blessing rite for same-sex couples wishing to wed,” reports David O’Reilly for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Currently Episcopal Church law defines “marriage” as limited to unions between a man and a woman. And “[a]dvocates of the blessing,” writes O’Reilly, “stress that it is not a sacrament and would not confer ‘marriage’ on the couple … But the 2009 convention had encouraged bishops in states allowing same-sex marriage–currently six, and the District of Columbia–to ‘provide generous pastoral response’ to gay and lesbian members.”