ARCHBISHOP of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba says he is pained by the Church of Southern Africa s decision to reject a proposal to allow prayers of blessing to be offered to people in same-sex civil unions.

The majority of those attending the Anglican Church s Provincial Synod its top legislative body which covers Anglicans in Angola Lesotho Mozambique Namibia South Africa Swaziland and on the island of St Helena voted against the proposal.

I was deeply pained by the outcome of the debate. I was glad I wear glasses or the Synod would have seen the tears. I wanted to be anywhere but in the Synod hall. I wished I was at home, quietly, in Magoebaskloof,” Makgoba lamented.

An initial motion before the Synod which was held in Ekurhuleni on the East Rand had proposed that bishops could provide for clergy who identified as LGBTI and were in legal same-sex civil unions to be licensed to minister in parishes but the motion was withdrawn before the debate began.

On the second motion that on allowing prayers of blessings to be offered to people in same sex civil unions Makgoba said that under the Canons he had declared the issue a controversial motion

This meant that to be approved it needed a simple majority vote in the three separate houses of the Synod: the House of Bishops the House of Clergy and the House of Laity the latter representing the people in the pews.

In addition if it had been approved in each of those houses voting separately it needed a two-thirds majority overall to pass.

The motion failed to achieve a simple majority in any House. The bishops voted 16 to six against the motion the laity 41 to 25 against and the clergy 42 to 34 against Makgoba said.

At the same time he pointed out the debate was not over.

Without trying to predict its ultimate outcome or to suggest what that should be it was notable that a number of opponents of the motion did not reject it out of hand but suggested instead that opinion in our Church was not yet ready for such a move.

Of the countries represented at the Synod only South Africa allows people of the same gender to marry under civil law.

$ % !$