The implication would seem to be that whatever might “directly and publicly” undermine the doctrine of marriage may be perfectly admissible if done “indirectly and privately.” The progressive wing of the Episcopal Church used that ploy for years, surreptitiously establishing facts on the ground, until it couldn’t be ignored any longer.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Two years after TEC was threatened with discipline by the Primates at Dar Es Salaam in 2007, General Convention 2009 came up with an end run that did not directly change the teaching of Christian marriage as between one man and one woman. Instead, they enacted Resolution C056 which circumvented those boundaries in practice by authorizing bishops and clergy to provide a “generous pastoral approach to meet the needs of [LGBT] members of this Church.”<\/p>\n
Within a mere six years the foundations of the Church\u2019s teaching on marriage were so compromised by \u201cfacts on the ground\u201d\u009d that TEC General Convention 2015 effectively revised the Prayer Book by simply passing a \u201cmarriage equality\u201d\u009d canon eliminating any language limiting marriage as between one man and one woman. In fact, those \u201cgenerous pastoral provisions\u201d\u009d evolved into the liturgies of the Church.<\/p>\n