Marriage ban mulled by church, Gay unions divide Anglican Diocese of Ottawa

An Elgin St. church might stop marrying straight couples if blessing same-sex unions isn't endorsed at the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa's annual synod in Cornwall later this week. "If we can't marry everyone who comes to us in faithful union, we won't marry anyone," said Rev. Canon Garth Bulmer, who introduced a motion that Ottawa's bishop allow clergy "whose conscience permits" to bless same-sex unions. "If gay people cannot have equal access to the sacraments of St. John's Church, we won't do the sacrament of marriage. It's a symbolic act which would be a gesture of solidarity."

Bulmer hasn't yet decided to take that step but his church council has discussed it as controversy swirled around Canadian Anglicans and threatened to split the church. The Ottawa diocese will be the first to consider the issue since June, when the General Synod of Canada narrowly defeated a plan to allow the blessings yet found they don't conflict with "core doctrine."

FINAL DECISION

The bishop of Ottawa, the Rt. Rev. John Chapman, voted for the blessings then but said in a statement that whatever the outcome of the local vote, he will make the final decision. Representatives of the 140 churches in the sprawling diocese will vote Friday and Saturday. It will be difficult to bring the two sides together. "When you're opposing it because it's wrong and sinful and people who engage in those practices are bad, it's homophobic," Bulmer said. Rev. George Sinclair, of St. Alban the Martyr Church, which withheld taxes from the diocese to protest advocacy of the blessings, opposes gay marriage as being at odds with scripture.

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