An Honourable Estate: Marriage, Same-Sex Unions, and the Church

Sara Stratton, who holds a Ph.D. in American history from York
University, teaches at Open College and is a member of the
research/program staff at the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada.

The place of gay and lesbian people in the church is contested terrain.
Officially, the United Church of Canada has welcomed all people to the
pulpit as well as the pew since 1988. In the Anglican Church of Canada,
gay men and lesbians may not serve as clergy unless they are celibate.
This was the crux of Jim Ferry’s trial “in the courts of the Lord”
in the early 1990s; because he was open about his gay relationship, he
was defrocked as a priest. This study guide, produced by a group at
Toronto’s Church of the Redeemer and published by the Anglican Church
of Canada’s press, is a curious wade into territory with which the
institutional church is still struggling.

The authors of An Honourable Estate seek, with intelligence and
honesty, to engender parish-based discussion of whether or not gays and
lesbians should be allowed to marry within the Anglican Communion. This
is curious. Of all the gay and lesbian issues facing the church and
society, perhaps none is so highly charged as marriage. Not even the
United Church, which many believe dug its own grave in 1988, has
seriously broached this topic.

This may put the Redeemer group bravely out in front on moral grounds,
but this reader cannot help but think that the cause of gay men and
lesbians in the Anglican Church would have been better served by an
education and action resource on the full place of gays and lesbians in
the church than by this narrowly focused resource.

Nevertheless, for those more interested in the question of same-sex
marriage, this is a useful tool, albeit of limited scope. It will appeal
to those interested in biblical analysis of the question, but its
doctrinal context is best suited to its intended audience—Anglicans.
Although in many places less clearly written than a popular education
tool ought to be, it still offers a range of discussion questions that
will keep the parish study group on its toes.