After two weeks of hard work, the 79th General
Convention is now concluded. The legislative session for the House of
Deputies ran from 8:00 AM to 1:30 PM, with votes on 29 pieces of legislation…our
fastest pace yet. There are several
reasons that voting goes so quickly on the last day. First, every piece of legislation has already
been approved by the House of Bishops, so it probably makes some kind of
sense. Second, if we amend a Resolution
and pass it, it then needs to go back to the House of Bishops. If there isn’t time for that, the legislation
goes bye-bye. Finally, we’re all quite
ready to go home.
We voted again on B012, the legislation expanding the
availability of same-sex marriages in the church. We already voted on that earlier, but the
Bishops had adjusted it slightly, so we had to vote on it again. (See the previous paragraph.)
We had a number of Resolutions relating to racism and to
gender issues. All passed.
We also had an additional 24 courtesy resolutions that are like “we want to thank the city of
Austin for hosting us.”
It’ll take some time to sort out the importance of this
General Convention. Starting Prayer Book
revision was probably the most important thing we agreed to, but that just initiates
the process. The real challenge comes
with sifting through a mountain of heartfelt suggestions to create the new
materials. Somehow, I suspect something in this vein: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsHq-mZI8U
.
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