Wed 14 May 2014 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Peter Lineham Today's decision by the Anglican Synod to move towards blessing same-sex relationships is a "tiny, tiny step forward" which one of the country's foremost observers and historians of religion finds "disappointing." The two-yearly Anglican Church Synod, meeting in Waitangi, has anguished over ten possible options for responding to calls to embrace glbti people more equally, all of which were "weak" according to Professor Peter Lineham of Massey University. Lineham is disappointed that the working group which produced the ten options, which included an ex-Governor General and a High Court Judge, all from outside the Church, made no actual recommendations. "All today's announcement means is that they will offer a post-marriage blessing, it's just a form of ceremony," says Lineham, who is a gay man and a committed Christian. He says any move to conducting same-sex marriages would be extremely difficult as "marriage is regulated by the fundamental canons of the church". Lineham says the Church's leaders will also be aware that the 1928 Anglican Amendment Act, which includes a legal definition of marriage, might be used against the church if it went too close to conducting same-sex marriage. "There are conservatives in the church who would surely take the matter all the way to the supreme court based on that Act," he says, noting that it would probably take an Act of Parliament to get around that legal aspect. There have been suggestions in the past that any progressive move on homosexuality made by the overall church could see the Maori and Polynesian wings split away. "Today, in choosing the most limited option available to them and by not even giving the bishops any room to move, they are clearly trying to hold a firm line right across the Church in order to hold it together," Lineham believes.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 14th May 2014 - 5:08pm