c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Episcopalians in Vermont, in a “pastoral response” to the nation’s first and only civil unions law, have unveiled liturgical rites that gay couples can use in the state’s 48 Episcopal churches.

The worship guidelines, which look and sound like liturgies used for heterosexual weddings, are believed to be the first anywhere in the Anglican Communion that convey church blessings on gay civil partnerships.

The services are contained in a 36-page manual that is being distributed in briefing sessions to clergy this weekend (June 18-19). An 18-member committee began drafting the rites last October, and they are expected to become official in 2006.

“Here in Vermont, we are, as a pastoral response, involved in the blessing of holy unions,” said Bishop Thomas Ely. “It would help our people to have the experience of common liturgy where there’s consistency in teaching, in language.”

About 1,000 Vermont couples have obtained civil union certificates since the state enacted a landmark law in 2000 that made all of the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage available to gay couples.

The new ceremonies include the traditional vows “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer …” The prayers of the priest ask God to “let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads.”

“For those Episcopalians who have been to celebrations of holy matrimony, it will have a familiar ring to it,” said Stan Baker, one of the original plaintiffs in a 1997 suit that resulted in the Vermont civil unions law, who helped draft the liturgy.

Episcopal bishops in Massachusetts _ the only state in the country to allow gay marriage _ have barred clergy from officiating at civil ceremonies, although they are allowed to give couples the church’s blessing.

(The same policy applies in Vancouver, where British Columbia has authorized gay marriage but the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster has not.)

Other Episcopal dioceses, including Washington and Los Angeles, allow the blessing of gay unions, but those services carry no civil or legal authority.

The decision by Vermont to formally bless gay civil unions is likely to exacerbate tension among conservatives in the larger Anglican Communion, who accuse the U.S. and Canadian churches of pursuing a leftward agenda that is unbiblical.

At the same time Ely unveiled the new rites, an Irish archbishop heading a special task force on Anglican disunity was meeting in North Carolina with U.S. church leaders.

Cynthia Brust, a spokeswoman for the American Anglican Council, said the Vermont policy was the newest signal of “growing and deepening chaos and disarray” in the North American church.

“We are just horrified and distressed,” she said. “To equate holy matrimony with holy unions is abhorrent. Marriage is a sacramental rite designed by Scripture and 2,000 years of tradition and history to be between a man and woman.”

Ely, who has personally blessed two gay unions, acknowledged concerns that his policy would further alienate the U.S. church from sister churches around the world, but said he is responsible first and foremost to his flock.

“We’re also mindful of the fact that we have a local context in which we’re trying to be the church, and we’re hopeful that others will be respectful of that, and trust that we didn’t enter into this without a lot of thought and our experience,” he said.

Last year, delegates and bishops at the church’s General Convention approved a resolution that acknowledged some bishops allow gay union ceremonies “as part of our common life.”

And in 2000, delegates said such relationships should exhibit “fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and holy love.” Both conventions declined moves to establish nationwide rites.

A theological statement in the manual acknowledges the “ick response” some may feel towards homosexuals. “We believe that together we can find ways to address such gut reactions that build up, and do not tear down, the Body of Christ,” the manual said.

The statement said “a few verses” of biblical condemnations against homosexual activity are “entirely different” from the experience of committed gay couples. Still, it said such a statement “is not one that can be embraced by all” in the church.

The Rev. Michael Hopkins, a Maryland priest who is the former president of Integrity, a gay Episcopal group, said Vermont’s decision may prod the church to further action when it meets again in 2006.

“I’ve no doubt that those who are already yelling `schism’ are going to continue to yell it, but the more dioceses that embrace something like this, the more obvious it becomes that the church is moving on,” said Hopkins, who had his union blessed by Washington Bishop John Chane on June 12.

Anne Clarke Brown, the co-chair of the Vermont task force that helped draft the guidelines, said gay couples have crucial lessons to teach the wider church about the importance of a church blessing on relationships.

“That’s one of the things that goes on in marriage, although people get so wrapped up in the dresses and the cake that they forget it’s about a faith community saying, `Yes, we will help do this difficult thing,”’ she said.

DEA/PH END ECKSTROM