Episcopal Press and News

Episcopal Synod Opposes Seminary's Housing Policy

Episcopal News Service. February 24, 1994 [94031A]

The Episcopal Synod of America (ESA), a traditionalist group formed in 1989 to oppose what it perceives as liberal trends in the church, has condemned a policy that opens housing at the General Theological Seminary (GTS) to gay and lesbian couples. In a February 14 statement, ESA executive director Samuel L. Edwards pointed to the revision in policy as evidence of "the moral decadence rampant within the institutional Episcopal Church." He said that the new policy "plainly permits behavior which is just as plainly considered inappropriate by the official acts of the General Convention" that declares physical sex is appropriate "only within the life-long monogamous union of husband and wife." He added that the ESA will join other organizations to "expose and oppose the agenda which lies behind this policy statement." Bishop Craig Anderson, dean and president of GTS, said that when the policy was adopted that it "does not solve all the difficult underlying issues" but that "it does provide the seminary community with a realistic and open framework for living within the tension produced by the discontinuity between the teaching of the Episcopal Church and the experience of many of its members in the area of human sexuality." Same-sex couples who are preparing for ordination and seek seminary housing must receive written approval from their diocesan bishop as a sign of "shared responsibility" for the decision. Edwards said that the policy violates the seminary's own requirements that students and faculty conform to Episcopal teaching.