General Convention, day 7

It was Sunday, so we had a relatively light day in terms of activity. The United Thank Offering ingathering was in the morning. Always nice to see 150 bishop vested out. In the afternoon, three hours of legislative time. That's it.

But there was one little resolution taken care of, D025. You have probably heard of it already. It is the response to B033 that the World Mission Committee put forth out of the many resolutions it received on the subject. If you look at it--you can find it in several places, including the Episcopal Church's General Convention pages and Integrity's pages--you will see that it has a lot of language specifically designed to say where we are with respect to the Anglican Communion.

We passed a special order to limit debate, so we had 30 minutes to comment upon it, followed by 10 minutes for amendments and ten minutes for substitutions. And then we voted. There were two attempts to divide the motion, which to say some wanted to separate out parts of the motion they did not like and voted separately on them. Both failed.

There were also two attempts to remove language from the resolution, but they also failed. Then time was up. However, someone called for a vote by orders. When this device is used, the deputations are split into clergy and laity. A yes vote means more than 50% of your deputation voted in favor, usually 3 or 4 members (Some deputations have fewer than four members in each order). A no vote means 1 or none of your members voted. A divided vote means just that, a 2-2 split. To pass the resolution, you must have a majority in each order.

The process also requires written forms filled out ans signed by each member of the deputation. So it takes time. We also dragged it out by having to vote by orders on one of the motions to divide. Fortunately, Joe Ferrrill, member of the North Carolina delegation, offered a motion to suspend the rules and allow a voice vote. It passed overwhelmingly, so we did not have to vote by orders on the second division.

Anyway, the results were overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution (77-31 in the lay order, 74-35 in the clergy. I did not write down the divided numbers.

Now, it is on to the bishops, who are likely to be a closer vote. Film at 11....

The Liturgy committee is planning to draft their final version of the same sex litrugies resolution today, in which case it is likely to show up tomorrow in the bishops. This will be the tougher sell, though the committee member bishop think they are getting a version that will work. I am off to watch them now. See ya.