No Episcopal Liturgy for Gays : Massachusetts Vote Close; Future Passage Predicted

Delegates to a convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts have voted down a resolution to develop a liturgy blessing homosexual couples.

Despite the vote, church officials and a representative of the church’s gay members in Massachusetts said they were optimistic the measure would eventually be passed on the state and national levels.

The vote was 196-219. Members of the clerical delegation voted 114-79 for the proposal, but the 82-140 vote by lay members defeated it.

An alternate resolution calling for “covenanted friendships” also failed.

‘Very Optimistic’

“The issue is quite alive. We’re all quite delighted at the overall tone of the proceedings, as well as the fact that the vote was so close,” said Brian Van Lierop, a gay member of Boston’s St. John the Evangelist’s human relationships committee, which drafted the resolution a year ago.

“In looking at this in a historical perspective, we never dreamed that our chances of coming so close to passage would be so real a possibility,” Van Lierop said. “My general opinion is very optimistic.”

The measure, which would have been forwarded upon passage to the church’s national convention next year, would have developed a liturgy blessing gay couples but would not have blessed marriages of gay couples.

Debate at the convention centered on whether homosexuals are inclusive in the body of Jesus or are equal members in the church, said Susan Erdey, a diocese spokeswoman.

Van Lierop said indications that the church eventually will accept homosexuals as whole members developed after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, exhorted church leaders, in Van Lierop’s words, “to listen to what homosexuals have to say about their situation.”

Erdey said many church officials believe the convention vote was a beginning. “There was good dialogue, and this will foster more dialogue,” he said.