The first such ceremony in the state is likely to be during the New Year’s Day worship service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Wilmington, where Wilmington attorneys Lisa Goodman and Drewry Fennell will say their vows in front of their families, friends and fellow congregants.
Goodman is president of Equality Delaware, the advocacy group that drafted the law and steered it through the General Assembly. Fennell is executive director of the Delaware Criminal Justice Council.
“To have someone ask for a Sunday morning service made perfect sense to me — that’s when my wedding was,” said the Rev. Patricia Downing, rector at Trinity. “It’s when the community gathers traditionally, and it’s a wonderful witness to the fact that these relationships are lived out in community.”
As a lengthy, human-interest story, this article helps put faces on some of the real people involved in these sorts of events. But it’s still sad that so often, as here, an Episcopal church is prominently displayed, occupying the vanguard position, proudly flying the flag of their progressivism on social issues.
Which of course also means another TEC congregation openly and unashamedly declaring their antinomianism on sexual morality. For when it comes to sexual ethics, to be progressive and to be permissive are actually one and the same. It’s a perfect example of what St. Paul talks about in referring to people who applaud those who do evil and who brag about what they should be ashmed of (e.g., Rom. 1:32).
The polazrization of both church and state continues unabated in the USA. Still, it’s always good to be reminded that we’re not merely dealing with abstract moral principles here, but rather with specific flesh-and-blood human beings, fellow sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, who have legitimate needs that, alas, they are seeking to meet in the wrong way.
David Handy+
Delaware Anglican here. Trinity parish has a reputation for being completely in the bag for TEC and on “social issues.”
I’d also like to propose a total moratorium on the old saw, “relationships lived out in community.” I’d [i]never[/i] heard that one before!
It’s also notable that Trinity parish is practically right down the road from The Cathedral of St. John, which is Wilmington’s only Episcopal cathedral until the close it down next year due to the ill effects of “progressivism.” Delaware Episcopalianism is of a piece with other bastions of mainline enlightenment in the NE, such as the Dio of Rhode Island and the Dio of Vermont.
Wyclif, can you comment on the state of the Anglican church in Delaware? ACNA/AMiA plants or the like? Progress on that score?
I’m well aware the area is heavily RC(a good thing, in my view) but I wondered if there were any decent options for traditional Anglicans unable, for their own reasons, to swim the Tiber. Such comments/answers might help others reading here. The last time I attended church in DE(whilst visiting family) it was an ACC, and very small. I do not attend TEC in DE, and have no plans to.