Anglican Church says YES to same sex marriage

Anglican bishops have crushed a vote that would restrict marriage to just a man and a woman.

Anglican bishops have crushed a vote that would restrict marriage to just a man and a woman.

The Anglican Church is edging towards a walkout after the church leaders voted against restricting a marriage to be exclusively between a man and a woman.

Progressives argued that denying a blessing to gay couples who wanted their civil vows recognised was cruel and un-Christian and would leave the church out of step with mainstream culture and inclusive social values.

Vicar Shane Hubner of St Peters Anglican Church, in Melbourne's Box Hill, said the notion that marriage was the union of a man and woman was “deeply painful” for him to accept when he had two gay siblings.

“It is deeply painful … to have discussions where I have to state that the church I serve does not recognise the blessing of God in their relationships,” he said.

A bitterly disappointed conservative Archbishop Raffel warned the church in Australia was at the “tipping point” that caused its counterparts in the US, Britain, Canada, Brazil and New Zealand to splinter over same-sex marriage.

Describing the situation as “perilous” for the church, he said: “What we have seen over the last 20 years or so in mostly Western churches is where people have lost confidence in the goodness and trustworthiness of God’s word as it has been expressed in Anglican liturgy and practice for 500 years … those churches have fractured. We don’t want that. But we know what has happened in many countries and I guess it is perilous in that sense.”

What happened at the Synod

It all went down in a vote at the General Synod - a meeting of clergy.

Church conservatives attempted to re-avow a "statement" that marriage was between a man and a woman only, and thereby condemn the blessing of legalised same-sex marriage in the church. Yet it was rejected by Australia's Anglican bishops on Wednesday.

The vote sailed through the houses of clergy and laity but the bishops voted against the "statement" by 12 votes to 10. It had to pass through all three houses to be successful. 

The church's divide between conservative and progressive Anglicans has existed for decades but deepened when the 2017 plebiscite welcomed same-sex marriage into secular law. 

The Anglicans’ day of reckoning on same-sex marriage has been coming since Australians voted for it in a national plebiscite nearly five years ago and was put off twice when the usually triennial General Synod had to be cancelled in 2020 and last year because of Covid-19.

A diocese is a group of churches under a particular bishop. The Sydney Diocese firmly opposes gay marriage. 

Despite the decision by the General Synod, each diocese can make a separate decision. 

3.1 million Australians are Anglicans.