We had a meeting at our parish last night on the Same Sex Blessing issue. This is a hot button topic to say the least. Some people are adamantly opposed for both biblical and cultural issues, others are open and able to see this as a challenge and not a threat.
There remain people that are a priori opposed to this, they frequently rely on biblical references to validate their point, problem is that when you speak to them the biblical references are actually found after the fact. They believe this is 'wrong' and then hold up the bible and ask you to look at it, point out the passage with a finger and say 'see here it is' and that, for them, is the end of their argument.
The problem is that the moment that a person uses the bible to justify this one position they open themselves up to the argument that there are a number of other 'rules' in the bible that are just as important, working on Sunday, usury, female priests, death penalty etc. that are in the bible but are no longer being followed by our church, you can't pick and choose, the Sunday work thing is a 10 commandments issue, working on Sunday carries the death penalty - it's very clear - but we haven't had anyone stoned in recent memory. So unless you're going to accept all of the bible and all of it's rules you can't use it as a basis for argument.
The other thing that confuses me is the attitude that the conservatives hold that "if you disagree with me I'm leaving" I can understand someone not agreeing but why leave? This seems to be against the Anglican tradition really. It's almost as if it's being used as a sledgehammer to try and hold this issue back - I have yet to find anyone who can give me a reason for this extension to the argument especially with parishes rejecting bishops. Nothing that has been said that would force any parish to do anything that they don't want to do, so why can't they accept a bishop that might support this issue? There is so much else for us to spend our time on why is this an issue.
Sigh...
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