Episcopal bishops decline to roll back inclusion of gays

http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/episcopal_bishops_decline_to_r.html

[The Times-Picayune] 26 Sep 2007--Episcopal bishops meeting in New Orleans declined Tuesday to give powerful conservative Anglican primates overseas the new, unequivocal guarantee the primates demanded to end the ordination of partnered gay bishops.

But the bishops said the vote was not an act of defiance. Rather, they said they reconfirmed the same moratorium on new gay bishops the Anglican Communion sought and received last year after the ordination of Bishop V. Gene Robinson shocked the Anglican world in 2003.

In addition, the Episcopal bishops pledged "not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions," another flash point in the Episcopal church's collision with the primates, or heads of churches in 37 other autonomous Anglican provinces around the world.

But, significantly, the bishops did not pledge to stop some priests' under-the-radar practice of using rewritten house blessings or other rites to bless gay couples, usually with the tacit approval of sympathetic local bishops.