Because if you can’t get your news about the Colorado diocese of the Episcopal Church here, where else can you get it? (Don’t answer that.)
(This article is on the first day’s business, and has at least one error that really stands out, to wit the scheduled adjournment time, which is only off by two hours. Take the accuracy of the rest in the same light.)
Slept in a little — Kitten was up around 7:15a — and then off to the convention. Brief browse around the exhibitors rooms, the on to business.
First off, they announced the result of the elections the day before for deputies to the General Convention 2006. A mixed result — a few people I wanted on didn’t make it, a few I didn’t want to did. Overall, I was pleased with the results. That is, though, what makes a horse race.
Then on to the meaty (extra rare) part of the convention, the resolutions. No legislation per se, just resolutions . That means the results weren’t necessarily binding, but that makes it a bit easier to posture sometimes.
The first resolution had to do with asking the General Convention to regularize the confirmation of bishops. Right now, most of the time, an elected bishop is confirmed by a majority of bishops and their standing committees around the national church. If the election occurs within 120 days of GC, though, then the GC gets to confirm them. That’s what happened with Gene Robinson, and there’s some feeling that Robinson wouldn’t have been confirmed had it gone out to the dioceses. I’m not sure about that, but I am in favor of regularizing procedures, and I thought this was a reasonable thing to support. So I did, and it passed (though with some opposition).
Resolution 2 called for the diocese and congregations to commit to ponying up at least 0.7% of their income to world outreach and international relief. Since that actually happens in most places, it was pretty much a no-brainer, though some folks got all hinky over the resolution mentioning the United Nations (even though it was only to refer to certain goals, not any particular UN programs). The resolution passed.
Then the other shoe dropped.
Resolution 3 defined “Christian marriage” as a solemn and public vow between one man and one woman only. The proposer for it actually was sitting at the table ahead of us. His speech in favor of the resolution was not very good — a bit too technical and over-reliant on the word “catachesis” (see, we have to do this in order to teach our kids what marriage is about), but since I suspect most folks had already made up their minds …
One other point from his speech. The definition as he gave it was similar, but not identical to, the one in the Book of Common Prayer. He actually argued against a proposed amendment to change definition to that in the BCP (dropping the “only,” adding in “… in the sight of God,” and changing the “one”s to “a”s. His point — and counter to the argument that, well, this is already in the BCP, so why pass a resolution on it, was that the resolution was to “enhance the clarity of the teaching.”
Of course, every time you try to enhance clarity, you add in distortions (speaking of graphic images here). And when ever you zoom in, you also end up cropping some stuff. In other words, “enhancing the clarity” changes the message.
At any rate, the amendment passed, and then the speechfying began.
The rules of the convention were such that on any question, three speakers for and against from the floor were allowed. The bishop opened that up to five each, but there was still plenty of folks cued up at the mic — Yours Truly included — when the debate was wrapped up.
At which point, someone moved to table postpone indefinitely the question. Which motion, in turn, engendered lengthy and moderately heated discussion. I was able to get to the mic though, to speak in favor of the postponement — which I considered a better alternative to voting against the resolution.
Here’s what I’d written notes to say:
Right Reverend, Sir … That the substance of this resolution is, as Rev. Dr. Radner put it, is in fact being contested, indicates that it is a divisive matter. Having listened to people speak passionately on the subject both during the breakout session yesterday and on the floor today, it’s clear that no matter which way a vote on the resolution goes, people will draw messages one way or another far beyond the straightforward words of the Prayer Book. People have said publicly that a vote for — or against — the resolution means they feel unwelcome in the church. In the spirit of the Bishop’s task force, which asks us to learn to live together before we make such momentous decisions, I ask that this resolution be tabled — not out of disagreement with the Prayer Book, but to not foment disagreement and division with one another right now.
So that’s what I meant to say. In reality, faced by six hundred lay delegates and clergy, not to mention the bishop, and speaking someone extemporaneously and on a matter of some moment, I was not nearly that glib. But I got most of that out.
Another person stood to oppose the tabling (and support the amendment). She pled for resolution in order to provide clear teaching for children — that if teens come up and ask what the church teaches about sex and marriage, the lack of such a resolution would require her to simply shrug and tell them to ask in another year. Which seems a bit of an exaggeration — the phrase in question is in the BCP, after all, and if someone’s moral guidance requires a non-binding resolution from the diocesan convention, it sounds like more of a problem with the teaching than with the convention.
Another person arose in favor of tabling the resolution, saying what I’d been trying to get across — that a convention resolution was not the proper “frame” in which to have the discussion that’s clearly needed.
Ultimately, the postponement came to a vote. Lots of voices responded “Aye.” Lots of voices responded “Nay.” We had to pull out our little green and red slips of paper, and do a vote holding those in the air. It looked close … it looked very close …
And it was, with just over thirty more delegates voting to table the resolution.
Kelsey Hogue — one of the regional missioners, and one of the candidates for bishop last time out — stood up for a personal point of order. He asked folks not to interpret his yes or no votes on these matters, noting that there as no way to register abstentions, and no way to register a desire not to engage in divisive, headline-generating votes with a simple up-or-down. An interesting point, though I felt the postponement/tabling move was, in fact, a vote to “abstain,” it’s also possible to interpret it other ways.
Things were pretty straightforward after that. A resolution reaffirming our Anglican ties went through much more simply (as amended to make it clear that we were talking about the resolution of the diocese within the national church) went through with a lot of arguments in favor and a surprising lack against. Another to raise the minimum recommended clergy compensation guidelines also went through without a murmur.
After that came a limited but still endless list of final reports and congrats and accolades and convention business, and we — a couple of hours late — adjourned. Huzzah and hallelujah.
Next year the convention is in Grand Junction, which is a nice gesture to our Western Slope brethren. It’s also over my wife’s birthday, so it’s a lot less likely I’ll be volunteering as a delegate, alas.
Good stuff, for all the kvetching above, and I’m glad I went.