"Bishop Apologises for Accidentally Voting the Right Way"

The figures from the General Synod's vote on the bishops' report yesterday were as follows (just for those not versed in the ways of Anglican decision-making, the Synod votes by 'houses' - bishops, clergy, and laypeople):

House of Clergy: 93 for, 100 against, 2 abstentions.
House of Laity: 106 for, 83 against, 4 abstentions.
House of Bishops: 43 for, 1 against.

The one errant member of the episcopal bench was the very middle-of-the-road figure of the Bishop of Coventry. Now, it might not unfairly be commented that the Rt Revd Christopher Cocksworth not only is unaccustomed to rocking the boat, he may not be completely confident of where the boat is. It turned out that he'd pressed the wrong button when he was voting. It could happen to anyone, but let's hope a similar imprecision doesn't afflict President Trump regarding a different button which is never far away from him.

Again, for those not familiar with these things, even though the Houses of Bishops and Laity voted in favour of the report, it fails because the House of Clergy voted against it: all three have to be in agreement, on some matters with a two-thirds majority in each. I wonder whether ordained people in the Synod voted against the report more strongly because the existing practice, which it endorses, affects them more than the laity. The report justifies barring homosexual clergy from marrying (even though they do, and nothing happens to them) and prying into the sexual habits of ordinands on the grounds that clergy have an 'exemplary' role and therefore different standards of behaviour are expected of them than laypeople. I think this is ludicrous. The moral standards expected of laypeople and clergy are surely exactly the same. It makes no sense whatever to suggest that something which is right for a layperson to do is wrong for an ordained one. The difference is the sacramental nature of the ordained life: the ordained person has promised to try to live by certain standards, whereas the layperson hasn't.

The vote clearly shows how the Church of England - or at least those it elects as its representatives to Synod - is still divided about this, apparently roughly evenly. It may not be as simple as that, though. Some of those who voted to 'take note' of the report may not be opponents of further advances in the position of homosexual people in the Church, but rather supporters who felt that this was the best they could get at the moment (I might have felt like that). Some of those who voted not to 'take note' of it may not be supporters of greater rights for same-sex Christians, but rather those who are dissatisfied even with the limited concessions it makes. 

'We haven't coalesced around an end point', said the Bishop of Willesden after the vote, 'we haven't even begun to find a place where we can coalesce ... We don't know the next stage, nor when or whether we can bring another report to Synod.' Such indeterminacy will make the Bench of Bishops extremely uncomfortable, but at least this result shows them the direction they should be going in.