By Lyla Miller
Rev. Garth Bulmer doesn’t give up easily.
Seven years ago, Bulmer performed a commitment ceremony at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church on Elgin Street for a gay couple without permission from the diocese. When the bishop found out, he threatened to fire Bulmer if he did it again.
But since then, St. John’s has remained committed to welcoming all people — including gays and lesbians — into all areas of spiritual life.
“I would like to bless same-sex unions,” says Bulmer. “I’m not allowed to at the moment.”
Bulmer says same-sex couples occasionally approach him asking for a blessing but his hands are tied.
Unlike the Unitarian and United churches, the Anglican church does not allow blessing of gay and lesbian unions.
But seven years after Bulmer welcomed a gay couple down the aisle, things are starting to change. Ottawa’s new Anglican bishop, says Bulmer, is open to discussing how the church deals with homosexuality and Bulmer is trying to use formal channels this time to change the church’s position towards gay unions.
Each year, the diocese holds a convention during which priests and laypeople from Ottawa-area Anglican churches meet with the bishop to discuss current issues in the church.
Last October, Bulmer put forward a proposal to allow same-sex blessings.
“People were very supportive and positive towards it,” says Bulmer.
The youth representatives in particular got behind the motion, says Ron Chaplin, a gay member of the St. John’s congregation who educates church groups about homosexuality and AIDS.
“The younger people saw this not as a theological issue but as a social justice issue, and regarded the traditional view of the church as hypocritical,” says Chaplin.
The delegates passed a softer version of Bulmer’s proposal that called for a committee to study the issue for one year. “It satisfied Bulmer,” says Chaplin, who is now convening the committee.
“What he wanted to do was to put the issue on the floor for the very first time. And he made it quite clear in a sermon he gave last summer that, one, he didn’t expect that his motion would be passed and, two, that even if it did pass, it would still take several years to develop an appropriate liturgy,” Chaplin explains.
After the committee reports later this year, the bishop might strike another committee to make official recommendations, and then, the following year, there could be a vote on whether to develop a same-sex marriage ceremony.
Each church would then have to formally request permission to perform the blessing, conduct a vote among the congregation, and then wait for the bishop’s approval on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m jumping through the hoops I need to jump through,” Bulmer sighs.
Those hoops don’t include approval from Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the world-wide Anglican communion because of what the church calls the “local option.”
Each diocese has some autonomy in making decisions concerning rites (or blessings), while the national church can make decisions about certain larger issues without consulting the international church body.
Neale Adams is the communications officer for the Diocese of New Westminster, B.C, the only Anglican diocese in the world that’s already approved same-sex blessings.
He stresses that “there’s a clear desire to say that a blessing of a homosexual couple is not a marriage.”
Marriage is considered a sacrament and decisions to change sacraments must be made by bishops at the national level.
“The approach in New Westminster is that it’s not marriage, so the diocese can go ahead and do it,” explains Chaplin.
Adams says it’s not just a matter of semantics – the traditional definition of marriage is protected by the church’s biblical traditions.
“Marriage has always been a ceremony reserved for heterosexual people,” he says.
Bulmer says it doesn’t matter to him whether it’s called marriage or something else — he’s concerned with the spiritual aspects of ministering to his congregation, not with the legal process.
“Some might say it’s not actually marriage, but I wouldn’t care as long as it served to legitimize the relationship and it gives equal approval,” says Bulmer.