Actually, the GC consents in 2006 to the election of my bishop (who is twice divorced and thrice married) was very controversial, with many conservatives arguing against consent.

I think that the other difference between divorce and SSM for most Christians is that while divorce is seen as a “one time wrong” (e.g. a sin that one can repent from), SSM is seen as an “ongoing wrong” (e.g. a continuing sin which ipso facto is not being repented of).

Personally, I think that too often Western Christians who accept easy divorce do so because “there but for the grace of God go I”, and there is a belief that if one “repents” of a sin, there should no longer be any consequences.

I have long thought that the reason so many of us who object to same-sex marriage but accept divorce and remarriage is that the latter involves people we know, pleople like us, and same-sex unions involve people whom we do not know and who are definitely not like us. Of course, now it is becoming rarer for us not to know people in same-sex unions and many of us are discovering that they are more like us than we ever imagined.

Daniel:  It might surprise you to know that I lived in San Francisco for a year, attended St. Gregory’s church (go look ‘em up, but it is one of the most liberal, gay-friendly parishes in TEC), had a gay couple at our very small wedding ceremony there, etc., etc.  I have also known divorced folks.  If anything, I was more “liberal” in my thinking prior to these experiences, and these experiences have taught me that I can know and interact with folks, while not necessarily agreeing with what they are doing or what they want.  One of the things I find most sad today is the notion that if you “love” (agape love) somebody, you must automatically agree with their social and political policy views, and that if you don’t, then you clearly “hate” them.

My Gay Marriage

A recent newspaper headline proclaimed:
Iowa OKs Gay Marriage.
I wonder what took them so long.
I had a gay marriage that lasted for 53 years.
And it was solemnized by the chaplain at West Point
under decidedly gay circumstances,
with parents and friends attending.

Well, perhaps the marriage was not always gay.
But we did have New York, and we did have Florence,
at each end, and in between coped with all the concerns,
problems, heartaches, difficulties, and tragedies
that married flesh is heir to.

But we never lost that touch of gaiety that characterized the early years.
My gay partner lived life to the fullest, leaving on an
early flight to a better life to join a departed daughter and twelve dogs.
She told everyone that I’m 75 and I’ve had a good life!
She cherished all the gay moments in her life.

Only one prayer in the BCP blesses those who are gay—
as graduates, newlyweds, parents of a newborn, etc.—
those who are characterized by exuberance or mirthful excitement:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or
watch, or weep this night, and give your angels
charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ;
give rest to the weary, bless the dying, sooth the suffering,
pity the afflicted, SHIELD THE JOYOUS; and all for
your love’s sake. Amen.

Matthew 4:4

People do not live by bread alone, but by the very word that comes from the mouth of God?

Is this poetry bread?

William Shakespeare - To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.