The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande has lost 1/3 of its members since 2003. I guess ther is nobody left to say “No” to Vono.

For 2002 through 2011 Rio Grande also lost 38 percent of ASA, 54 percent of Marriages, and 59 percent of Infant Baptisms. But I believe that they have two conference centers.  Statmann

“It’s not a marriage in any way,” Vono said in an interview Sunday. “It’s not a legal marriage. It’s not a marriage in the church. This is a recognition of a commitment, which is a covenant, of two people who vow to live their lives in a monogamous relationship.”
It’s a sin for anyone to lie, especially a bishop. He surely KNOWS what all this is about, and in what direction this is going. Doubtless when SSM is declared a “sacrament” everyone who had SSBs will be grandfathered in.

So does the diocese also bless “a recognition of a commitment, which is a covenant, of two [opposite] sex people who vow to live their lives in a monogamous relationship,” at least for as long as they choose to do so?

It must break Terry Kelshaw’s heart to see what has happened to his old Diocese of the Rio Grande—I ‘ll bet he is so glad to be helping in the formation of the ACNA Diocese of the Southwest

One hears it often, but it’s worth flagging up the narrative of progress that seems to underlie the Bishop’s sensibility that this is the right judgment to make: from divorce through slavery to women’s ordination.

It’s worth thinking, given the rhetorical power of this narrative, how to remain unconvinced by its claims. The best way is to narrate a positive counter story - perhaps of faithfulness in the face of error (say from slavery to civil rights). But one might nibble away by remembering how each of the cases he presents don’t show what the narrative claims and that the narrative conveniently “forgets” the causes once seen as progressive that are now repudiated e.g. eugenics.

#4 Jim the Puritan,

That would be the Rite of Blessing Holy Shacking Up.

Or did you miss “Holy Shacking Up” from June 2011?

“Beginning Sunday, Episcopal priests in the San Joaquin Diocese can ‘perform blessings of same gender civil marriages, domestic partnerships and relationships which are lifelong committed relationships characterized by fidelity, monogamy’ and ‘holy love.’

The change doesn’t mean Episcopal priests will begin marrying same-sex couples, Bishop Chester Talton said. Such marriages are forbidden by state law, although that is under review by the courts.
Instead, Talton said, ‘what is being authorized is a blessing of relationships, which we’ve chosen to call sacred unions.’
That would include a blessing for same-sex couples who were married in a civil ceremony for the short time in 2008 when such marriages were legal in California, he said. It also would include homosexual or heterosexual couples who are not married, but live together in a committed relationship.

The impact, Talton said, will ‘acknowledge the sacredness of that relationship.’

Found in The Modesto Bee (link no longer functioning)