Subject: Family Values // pamphlet
From: Chris Ambidge <ambidge@ecf.toronto.edu>
Date: 	Mon, 29 May 1995 00:03:03 -0400


This is the text of a pamphlet assembled by Integrity/Toronto for
distribution at General Synod 1995 to be held in Ottawa in June 1995.

Yr Bullfrog goes to Ottawa on Wednesday 31st -- eek!  Prayers requested
for the Integrity witness there.  We anticipate 12 people all told
on our staff at one time or another.  This pamphlet was only finished
today and still has to go to the printers.  NOT as organised as I'd hoped.

 
a note on the typographic conventions:  A # symbol represents a 
bullet.  There are several long quotes in separate paragraphs, they
appear indented in the hard-copy text.

Reference is made to General Synod Canon XXI - On Marriage in
the Church.  While this is Anglican Church of Canada-specific,
I'm sure parallel documents exist in other denominations.

You are welcome to use this text, and to place the text
anywhere that you think it will benefit lesbigays.  I
would appreciate being told if such text is used.
 
Chris
  bullfrog to the buttbows  )+(
  and Integrity/Toronto person going to General Synod 1995

========= begin text =====

FAMILY VALUES
 = = = = = 

A family is a group of often very different persons with a 
spiritual affinity that brings and keeps them together.  Over the 
centuries there have been many types of family.  Some examples 
are:

#  two people living together, with or without children,

#  a man with several wives and many children (Jacob and Leah, 
Rachel, Zilpah, Bilhah and their twelve sons -- Genesis 31),

#  adult children living with elderly parents (Rufus and his 
mother -- Romans 16),

#  single parents with children,

#  adult siblings living together (Mary, Martha and Lazarus -- 
John 11),

#  blended families of parents and stepchildren.

The affinity which binds family members may have many forms.  
It may be the blood relationship which makes the special bond 
many of us have experienced.  It may be the legal and 
institutional tie of marriage, which can hold a family together 
"in both prosperity and adversity" (BCP p564).  It can include 
the responsibility for children.  Sometimes it is simply a 
fondness -- the sort of bond there is with a "courtesy aunt or 
uncle" -- which cannot be defined by law or by canon, but which 
still exists.

The essential for any surviving and healthy family is love.  
Newspapers today are filled with stories of families which end 
disastrously because they are no longer -- or perhaps never were 
-- founded on the necessary mutually covenanted love described in 
the marriage service.

God created humans with both the ability to love and the need 
to be loved.  Adam, the original human, was perfect but lonely; 
indeed in the whole story of Creation, the only thing which was 
"not good" is that a human should be alone (Genesis 3:18).  When 
Adam's partner was created, they both recognised the goodness of 
the relationship.  It is the intimate partnership which was the 
stated purpose of the relationship.  Procreation came later, 
perhaps as an accidental result of their God-given intimacy.

The Church has much to say about relationships between people 
of all types.  In particular , it emphasises the spiritual, 
social and psychological value of commitments, and is therefore 
concerned about their establishment, maintenance, and quality.  
General Synod Canon XXI describes marriage as:

"a lifelong union in faithful love, for better or for 
worse, to the exclusion of all others on either side. This 
union is established by God's grace when two duly qualified 
persons enter into a contract of marriage in which they 
declare their intention of fulfilling its purposes and 
exchange vows to be faithful to one another until they are 
separated by death. The purposes of marriage are mutual 
fellowship, support, and comfort, the procreation (if it 
may be) and nurture of children, and the creation of a 
relationship in which sexuality may serve personal 
fulfilment in a community of faithful love."

Gay and lesbian people have the same need for that God-given, 
intimate relationship.  Recognising the "not-goodness" in God's 
eyes of a lonely lifestyle, they do form such relationships and 
families.  The Church needs to address this with same-gender 
couples the same way it treats other couples, welcoming them as 
an indigenous part of Christ's flock.  Canon XXI goes on to say 
that "Marriage also is exalted as a sign of the redeeming purpose 
of God to unite all things in Christ, the purpose made known the 
reunion of divided humanity in the Church."  Indeed, everything 
in the description quoted from Canon XXI could apply to lesbian / 
gay couples -- who sometimes also raise children.

Official Church pronouncements about same-gender unions vary.  
It is interesting to note that a number of Anglican bishops have 
authorised the priestly blessing of such unions.  This was the 
rationale for one such ministry, in the diocese of Rochester, NY:

"For centuries the Church has blessed many things and many 
occasions. The Church blesses friendships, families and any 
two individuals who wish to commit their lives to each 
other and to Jesus Christ. The Church acts appropriately in 
the best interests of the faith when it confers a blessing 
of commitment upon two individuals of the same gender when 
they seek to share a life together and to grow in the grace 
of God. Whether in Matrimony or in the blessing of a 
particular couple's commitment, the Church does not 
specifically bless an orientation or a particular mode of 
sexual behaviour. The Church, however, blesses persons, 
regardless of orientation, who claim Jesus Christ to be 
their Lord and Saviour and who commit themselves as 
individuals or couples to the fellowship of the Church."

Cardinal Hume, senior Roman Catholic prelate in England, 
makes his church's position clear: "Love between two persons, 
whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured 
and respected."  

The cardinal went on to say that love between two people of 
the same gender is not automatically wrong and bad:

"When two persons love, they experience in a limited manner 
in this world what will be their unending delight when one 
with God in the next.

"To love another is in fact to reach out to God, who shares 
his loveableness with the one we love. To be loved is to 
receive a sign or share of God's unconditional love. To 
love another, whether of the same sex or of a different 
sex, is to have entered the area of the richest human 
experience."

The people of God are called to assert that it is God who 
brings all persons together, whether in simple friendship or in 
lifelong intimacy, and that humans are forbidden to put them 
asunder.  The world, the flesh and the devil work to destroy 
loving friendships.  Let's acknowledge that couples and families, 
whatever the shape of their relationship, need the Church's 
formal and official support, in God's name.

 = = = =

Published by Integrity, with three chapters in Canada:

Integrity/Toronto, Integrity/Edmonton and Integrity/Vancouver
        [addresses and phone #s omitted]
 
===== end text =====
 
--
Chris Ambidge / ambidge@ecf.utoronto.ca /  ambidge@ecf.toronto.edu

  Great Green Giant Bullfrog (in the inclusive sense) of God