Virginia’s Supreme Court struck a blow to Anglican conservatives Thursday, ruling against nine congregations who split from the Episcopal Church after it installed an openly gay bishop.
At issue are tens of millions of dollars of church property and symbolic momentum for dueling movements in the Anglican Communion.
The unanimous decision by the five-judge panel dismissing a lower court ruling that favored conservatives is not likely to end the dispute for the nine church properties. The panel simply found that a Civil War-era law governing how property is divided when churches split was wrongly applied to the current dispute. The panel sent the parties back to Fairfax County Circuit Court for a second, parallel case that focuses on who owns the properties, which is expected to be more complex and messy.
The more I think about this rather peculiar decision by the VA Supreme Court, the more I find myself surprised that it was a unanimous decision. Isn’t it odd that all five justices agreed to such convoluted reasoning as is displayed in the 32 page opinion? There’s more going on here than appears on the surface.
David Handy+
NRA: I have been very critical of many court decisions along the way which have gone against the conservatives. However, I must say that I think that there is a logic to what the Virginia Supreme Court said. The Court simply said that when there is a split, there is at least two branches coming out of the split. The congregation must join one of those branches. CANA pre-existed the split and was connected to a “church” that was not a part of TEC. So when the Anglican congregations split from TEC, they didn’t join one of the “branches” but a third organization. This is something which probably should have been thought about more clearly at the beginning of the process. I am disappointed at the decision, but I can see the rationale behind it.
Rev. Handy, I think you’re applying aspects of other supreme courts (perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court?) to the Supreme Court of Virginia, when the Virginia court is actually very different. It is more unusual for there to be a dissent in the Supreme Court of Virginia than for it to be a unanimous decision.
For example, go to the opinion list at http://www.courts.state.va.us/scndex.htm. By my quick count, there were 19 decisions released on 6/10. I have not clicked on them all, but I have opened the top 7 (down to Advanced Towingall unanimous.
Well, typed too fast, proof-read too little. Should end