Episcopalians Agree to Disagree on Gays : Rites: Priests may bless same-sex couples, but the practice is not authorized by church. Compromise heads off divisive battle.

Heading off a potentially divisive debate over the blessing of same-sex unions, delegates to the annual convention of the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese have agreed to disagree over whether diocesan priests should perform marriage-like ceremonies for gays and lesbians.

Under terms of a compromise resolution backed by traditionalists and advocates of gay and lesbian causes, Episcopal priests in the six-county Los Angeles diocese who have been “blessing” same-sex unions may continue to do so. Priests who have refused to perform such ceremonies may continue to refuse.

The compromise, approved on a near unanimous voice vote at last week’s convention in Riverside, comes at a time when the issue of same-gender unions is gaining attention, not only in the 2.5-million member Episcopal Church, but other denominations as well.

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Last month, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts voted to ask the church’s national legislative body, the General Convention, to direct the preparation of rites and ceremonies celebrating gay and lesbian unions. A similar resolution at the Los Angeles Episcopal convention was tabled.

A month earlier, the Conference of Bishops of the 5.2 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued a statement declaring their opposition to same-sex blessings after that church’s Task Force on Human Sexuality issued the first draft of a wide-ranging report on human sexuality. A section of that report implied that there should be some way of blessing committed gay and lesbian unions, church spokesman Frank F. Imhoff said from Chicago.

But Lutheran bishops balked. “There is basis neither in Scripture or tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship,” the Lutheran bishops said. “We, therefore, do not approve of such a ceremony as an official action of this church’s ministry.”

The Los Angeles Episcopal resolution--agreed to after an appeal by Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop Frederick H. Borsch for unity--is intended to offer an interim solution to the quandary until the General Convention takes a stand on the issue, perhaps next year.

Now, the Episcopal church neither authorizes nor prohibits the blessing of covenants of gays and lesbians. But the church’s House of Bishops plans to issue a “pastoral teaching” in time for the General Convention on the issue of human sexuality, including the ordination of gays and lesbians to the priesthood and the blessing of same-gender unions, Los Angeles Suffragan (assistant) Bishop Chester L. Talton said.

The issue has posed a dilemma for Borsch. As a bishop in a national church, he has told priests that he cannot officially authorize same-sex ceremonies at this time. But Borsch personally favors blessing covenants between gays and lesbians committed to lifelong care and support of each other. The result is that some priests have performed “unauthorized” blessings without being disciplined by the bishop.

For the time being, traditionalists and advocates of blessing same-sex unions said they are willing to live with their differences.

“In practical terms it means we’re stressing our unity,” said Father F. Brian Cox IV, rector of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara and an opponent of blessing same-sex unions. “We’ve agreed to live with a certain amount of lack of clarity about things, but clearly the diocese was not sanctioning the blessing of same-sex unions--and the vote should not be read in any way to that effect,” Cox said.

Steven Price, a member of Trinity Church in Los Angeles and a backer of same-sex blessings, said that by avoiding a debate, the church would be free to press its main agenda--spreading the Christian Gospel.

But he noted that as more same-sex blessings take place, official church recognition and endorsement may come. “The truth behind it will become so overwhelming that political actions, for which we are not now ready, will eventually follow,” Price said.