Episcopalians Decline to Stop Gay Unions, Gay Clergy

By DANIEL BURKE
Religion News Service

Episcopal leaders on Thursday (June 14) rebuffed demands from overseas Anglicans to roll back their church's pro-gay policies, arguing that such decisions can only be made at the denomination's triennial conventions.

The church's 40-member Executive Council, which is headed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, also declined a proposal from Anglican archbishops to create a separate church structure for conservatives who reject her leadership.

The panel, meeting in Parsippany, N.J., questioned overseas archbishops' power to "impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion or to prescribe the relationships within ... our common life."

The Executive Council declined to give a "yes or no, up or down decision," to all of the archbishops' demands, said the Rev. Lee Alison Crawford, a council member and rector of St. Mary's Parish in Northfield, Vt.

But Crawford said the council provided "a strong affirmation that the Episcopal Church is not going to go backward from the commitment to our (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) brothers and sisters."

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