The Bishop of Gippsland, The Right Reverend John McIntyre, has appointed an openly gay man as rector of a parish and he, with his partner, live in the rectory.
The Sydney Synod passed a motion noting this with grave concern
The full motion may be found here
http://www.sds.asn.au/assets/Documents/synod/Synod2012/bp1.081012.revised.pdf
on page 9 of the document, item 17.15
In particular the Lambeth Resolution 1.10 of 1998 on Human Sexuality was quoted in part.
This interesting document may be found here
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm
It is commonly called "The Windsor Report" and has, as its third point, this...
3. (This Conference) recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.
This is included in St Luke's Mission Statement, "We seek to share God's unconditional love and acceptance of all people, regardless of age gender, race, marital or family status, sexual orientation, disability or wealth."
This section was omitted from the Sydney Synod Motion, and The Reverend Chris Albany from South Hurstville moved an amendment to have it included. This was rejected by Synod.
Subsequently it was moved as a separate motion like this...
6.7 Listening to the experience of homosexual persons
Synod commits itself to listen to the experience of homosexual persons as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10. In particular to listen to their experience in and of the church, and encourages the Social Issues Executive of Standing Committee to develop strategies to enable the Diocese to do this in meaningful ways.
(The Rev Chris Albany)
This was amended by deleting all the matter after “Synod” and inserting instead the following –
“encourages members to carefully read the Bible’s teaching on godly sexual expression and in that light to listen to the experience of people with same-gender attraction (as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10), especially those who are seeking to lead godly and chaste lives with a view to our churches being better able to care for and encourage all people to submit to the Lordship of Christ.”
The heading was also amended to read “Listening to Scripture and the experience of homosexual persons”.
Many would say that this reverses the sense of the motion and is really a new motion rather than an amendment. Be that as it may, there was a further amendment as follows...
“encourages members to carefully read the Bible’s teaching on godly sexual expression and in that light to listen to the experience of all people with same-gender attraction (as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10),
and in this form it was accepted by Chris Albany and passed by the Synod.
At least one person who spoke to the amendment was from Liberty Christian Ministries Inc. http://www.libertychristianministries.org.au/ whose aim is to stand by and support people who are struggling with their sexual orientation. LCMI exists to help "those who are seeking to lead godly and chaste lives."
LCMI does not try to "liberate" people from the "sin" or "disease" of homosexuality. The idea that "gay" people can be "turned" straight is widely discredited as may be seen from the following article.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=33393 which is called "The Dangers of Gay Conversion"
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