Introduction

1. It is with gratitude for all who care deeply for the Episcopal Church that this contribution to the present conversation regarding the church's celebration of people's commitments to life together is offered. The Report which follows grew out of the Second National Consultation of Episcopalians on Same-Sex Unions, held at the College of Preachers, Washington, D.C., in July 1996, in anticipation of the 72nd General Convention, to be held in Philadelphia in July 1997.

2. Forty-six Episcopalians attended the Consultation. This report from the consultation is the work of the following: Marilyn McCord Adams, Professor of Historical Theology, Yale divinity School; J. Neil Alexander, Professor of Liturgics, General Theological Seminary; Bruce Bawer, Writer and Social Critic and Member of Holy Trinity, New York; Charles E. Bennison, Jr., Bishop Coadjutor of Pennsylvania; Anne C. Brown, Alternate Deputy to General Convention, Diocese of Vermont; William G. Burrill, Bishop of Rochester; Otis Charles, Bishop of Utah (Ret.) and director of Oasis/California; Randall C. K. Day, Executive Director, Canterbury Cathedral Trust, Washington, D.C.; Carol Ann Doran, Associate Professor of Worship and Pastoral Music, Bexley Hall, Rochester, New York; William Doubleday, Professor of Pastoral Theology, General Theological Seminary; Fred Ellis, III, President, Integrity; Bruce Garner, Past President, Integrity; Jane Garrett, Deputy to General Convention, Diocese of Vermont; Ronald Haines, Bishop of Washington; Albert N. Halverstadt, Jr., Rector, St. Barnabas, Denver; Juan Oliver, Canon Missioner of the Diocese of New Jersey; John Payne, M.D., Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore; Jennifer Phillips, Rector, Trinity Church, University City, Missouri; Gene Robinson, Canon to the Ordinary, Diocese of New Hampshire; Timothy F. Sedgwick, Professor of Christian Ethics and Moral Theology, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary; Martin L. Smith, SSJE, Superior, Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, Massachusetts; James Steen, Jr., Executive Director, Prism, Washington, D.C.; Susan Weeks, Member of St. Barnabas, Denver; Erica Wood, President and Warden, College of Preachers, Washington; and R. Stewart Wood, Jr., Bishop of Michigan. In addition, Patricia Beattie Jung, Associate Professor of Theology, Loyola University, Chicago, Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Andrew Sullivan, former Editor of The New Republic, were in attendance as presenters. While not attending the Consultation, poets Alfred Corn, Eric Pankey, and Jennifer Atkinson have commented on the language of the Rite offered below.

3. We were not of one mind when we came together, and, though much clearer about the issues, we were not of one mind when we parted. We did come to a general agreement that the desire to celebrate the commitment to a life together arises from within the baptismal community as it seeks to support all its members, including those who are lesbian women and gay men, as they endeavor to form and deepen their Christian identity by making mature commitments, sharing their gifts with the community, and receiving the support of the community. And having followed carefully the discussion about heterosexism in the church, and with consciences formed by Scripture, tradition, reason, and the experience of and belief in the equality of people, we came to believe that there is no justification for the exclusion of gay/lesbian people from full participation in the liturgical and sacramental life of the community. While few of us would agree with every sentence in what follows, all of us feel that our collaborative work should be shared with the bishops and deputies attending the 72nd General Convention as part of the ongoing discussion in the church.

4. Such ongoing discussion was called for by the 71st General Convention at Indianapolis when in Resolution C-013 it resolved "that the prayers in the marriage service of the Book of Common Prayer offer guidance to all Christians who seek to understand the nature of their relationships and who strive to be signs of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world; and... That this Church continue its dialogue on the gift of human sexuality." Secondly, in Resolution C-042a, it resolved "that the 71st General convention direct the Standing Liturgical Commission and the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops to prepare and present to the 72nd General Convention, as part of the Church's ongoing dialogue on human sexuality, a report addressing the theological foundations and pastoral considerations involved in the development of rites honoring love and commitment between persons of the same sex; "That no rites for the honoring of love and commitment between persons of the same sex be developed unless and until the preparation of such rites has been authorized by the General Convention;" and "That the sum of $8,600 be appropriated to support this work, subject to funding considerations."

5. We understand the last resolve clause in Resolution C-042a prohibiting the development of such rites to be intended for official bodies of the church and was not meant to stop people such as ourselves at the grassroots from doing theology. The prohibition presumably applies only to the national church, for the Book of Common Prayer authorizes diocesan bishops to set forth such forms as are fitting to the occasions "when no service or prayer has been provided in the Book" (BCP 13); when such events become more than occasional, dioceses customarily acknowledge a pastoral need and seek to regularize their worship by providing appropriate supplemental rites. We also believe that part of the genius of our church is our principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, and that a study of the pastoral considerations and theological foundations underlying such rites, such as the resolution calls for, requires the writing of such rites. Any rite is, in itself, a theological statement. The words and actions of a liturgy have a meaning that already expresses, implicitly or explicitly, answers to theological and pastoral questions. At the same time, the very existence of such a rite as the one presented here cannot help but raise a wide range of issues in a way that they have not, perhaps, been raised before. In turn, the way in which these issues are dealt with can be expected to influence any further development of the rite. Meanwhile, it is hoped that this Report will contribute to such a continuing the dialogue on issues of human sexuality as has been commended to the Episcopal Church by the House of Bishops and the General Convention.

6. It is not our intention that the rite below be used. Indeed, we present the rite as "a work in progress," and not many of us would be comfortable using it as it now stands. Can clergy canonically preside at the celebration of such commitments? Although the General Convention in 1979 passed a resolution against the ordination of homosexual persons, the church has not written into its canon law or rubrics any prohibition of such ordinations. Resolution A-104sa, passed by the 1991 General Convention, moreover, was offered as a compromise because the convention was unable to reach an agreed-upon policy regarding such ordinations. The resolution, even though arising out of the Ministry Committee of the House of Bishops, seems to acknowledge, first that the prior issue to be resolved is not ordination, but the church's sanction of the faithful commitments of homosexual persons, and second, that there is a discontinuity between the church's traditional teaching regarding marriage and many of its members' experiences.

7. Both the 1979 and the 1991 resolutions express majority views, but resolutions have never been either accorded the right of canon law or actively supported across the church by all bishops and clergy. The covenant embraced at their meeting at Kanuga in March 1995, by nearly all of the church's bishops to consult with one another on a provincial level when considering "the ordination of a non-celibate homosexual" or the filing of a presentment against a bishop who performs such an ordination signals an acknowledgment of the existence of, and widespread acceptance of, such persons in many quarters of the church. Finally, at the mid-March, 1995, meeting the Anglican primates conveyed their support of the Rt. Rev. David Hope of London, who disclosed that week that he had been the target of a gay activist campaign to expose him as a homosexual and referred to his sexuality as a "gray area," not strictly defined by either homosexuality or heterosexuality, and said he had chosen to live a "single, celibate life." At the same meeting Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, arguing that the church has to face the question of same-sex unions before that of ordaining noncelibate gay and lesbian persons, said: "I have a feeling that if that issue could be addressed and we could look at that sincerely in terms of two people who have commitment, that would say something about how we saw that lifestyle and about the holiness of that lifestyle." It is from this perspective on the value of commitment that we have produced this Rite.

8. The contents of this Report continue and supplement the document resulting from the First National Consultation of Episcopalians on Same-Sex Unions held in July, 1993. The three components of that document appear in its title: An Illustration of a Rite for the Celebration of Commitments to a Life Together, Suggestions for Education regarding Such a Rite, and Theological Reflections of the Need for Such a Rite. The Rite is offered as a model for consideration by the Standing Liturgical Commission if the 72nd General Convention calls upon it to draft for inclusion in the Book of Occasional Services proposed liturgical texts for the celebration of commitment to a life together by both heterosexual and homosexual persons.

9. Like the previous document, the present Report is in three sections, centered on a liturgical text. The theological setting of the earlier version of this rite concentrated on explaining the need for such a liturgical innovation, emphasizing question of moral justice and pointing out that the church is a heterocentric institution that supports heterosexism - the unjust privileging of those who practice heterosexual, as contrasted with homosexual, relationships. At the 1996 Consultation, this emphasis and the corresponding need for new liturgical forms were assumed to be real and important. Accordingly, the discussion focused instead on a wide range of other, different theological issues. The purpose of this Report is to make thes questions, and the Consultation's reflections on them, more widely available.

10. The first section of the Report raises theological foundations relevant to the blessing of commitments to a life together. Section Two is the illustration of a rite for blessing such commitments. Section Three offers, again mainly in the form of questions, some practical wisdom about celebrating same-sex unions in parishes of the Episcopal Church.