N. California Takes 'Huge' Step for Blessings

The Rev. James Richardson, interim rector, All Souls Berkeley, writes to emphasize that the Diocese of Northern California's recently passed resolution calling for same-gender union rites "was a HUGE step for our otherwise conservative, mostly rural diocese....no one, including the bishop, expected it to pass." Sounds like the Holy Spirit had expectations of her own. Thanks be for one more sign that "conservative" dioceses are getting just as fed up with the "fast" from blessings as the progressives are. Here's the resolution:

RESOLVED:
That this 97th Convention of the Diocese of Northern California, desiring to support our sisters and brothers in Christ who are in same-gender relationships of mutuality and fidelity, and desiring to provide clergy with appropriate pastoral tools for ministering to persons in same-gender relationships, calls upon General Convention of the Episcopal Church to develop and authorize same-sex union blessing rites.