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Part 1
The Social and Ecclesiastical Context
Modern Western societies in North America and Europe are increasingly moving toward the acceptance of same-sex relationships. At first people were challenged to accept lesbian and gay partnerships on a political and legal level; but recently and more problematically, Christians are being asked to accept a redefinition of the institution of marriage itself. No longer is marriage to be regarded essentially as a bond between one man and one woman, but as a sexual relationship in which two men or two women may also be committed to each other. They ought to be recognized to have the corresponding rights of support, parenting, adopting, inheriting, divorcing, and the other privileges and obligations that spouses in a marriage expect.
We recognize that a remarkable shift in public opinion has occurred in the last thirty years or so in the aftermath of the so-called sexual revolution. Several European countries, including traditionally Catholic societies such as Spain, as well as a number of American states have either passed legislation to allow same-sex marriage, or have had their courts rule that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is unjust. It is not at all surprising that many Christians who five in areas where these social developments have progressed furthest should attempt to harmonize the attitudes and practice of their churches with those principles of fairness, tolerance, and compassion that are the supporting moral features of the acceptance of same-sex marriage.
If we were assessing simply the drift of European and North American societies, and the Anglican churches there, the picture would be discouraging for conservatives because of the apparent strength of liberalism. However, we remind ourselves that the Anglican Communion as a whole is much more solidly biblical and traditional dian the Western liberal portion of it, and that the opposition we express in this paper to same-sex marriage is in fact the dominant position of worldwide Anglicanism. Further, we take courage from reflecting on the fact that a slide into lax sexual morals (characteristic of the last fifty years in the West) may be reversible, just as England witnessed a reversal of libertine \iexvs of sexual behavior in the seventeenth and again in the nineteenth centuries.
In recent years, the Anglican Communion has...