In an effort to become more gay-friendly, the Episcopal Church in the United States has decided to scrub the words “husband” and “wife” from Episcopal wedding ceremonies.
The changes to the denomination’s revered Book of Common Prayer removes the phrase “the union of husband and wife” and replaces it with “the union of two people”, and replaces the section which talks about part of God’s intention for marriage being “for the procreation of children” with the phrase “for the gift of children” to make it more acceptable to same-sex couples who may wish to adopt.
Couples will still be able to opt for the traditional “husband” and “wife” when making their vows, but this will not be included in the standardized version. Read More
This is not an unexpected development. The Episcopal Church has been moving in this direction for the past 20 years if not longer. Members of the LGBT community and progressive Christians in the Episcopal Church have worked to make the denomination not only welcoming of members of the LGBT community but also affirming of their lifestyle choices, resulting in all kinds of negative repercussions, including a steady decline in church membership. This decline cannot be accounted for by demographic shifts or the disappearance of nominal Christians from American churches. Even the change in attitudes of younger Americans toward the LGBT community has not helped the Episcopal Church to reverse its decline.
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