Church in Wales votes to bless same-sex marriages

SAME-SEX couples will be able to have their civil partnership or marriage blessed in Church in Wales churches following a vote.

The bill, which was passed by members of the Church in Wales’ Governing Body at a meeting on Monday, allows for a blessing service only, as same-sex couples are unable to marry in church.

It proposed that the service should be used experimentally for five years, with individual clergy able to decide whether or not they wish to lead it.

All three orders of the Church in Wales’ Governing Body – the bishops, the clergy and the laity – voted by at least the two-thirds majority required to pass the bill.

Members spent the first day of their three-day conference at the International Convention Centre Wales in Newport debating the bill.

Speaking in his keynote address before votes were cast, Bishop Andy John, the Senior Bishop of the Church in Wales, acknowledged that some would regard the change as a departure from the word of God.

“But every development is to some degree a departure; something changes whenever there is a new expression of practice,” he told those at the meeting.

“And even when such a change appears consonant with a stated position, it is nevertheless a change.

“When the church changed its position on forbidding meat with blood in it, or saw that slavery in all and any form was wicked, there was change.”

The bishops passed the bill unanimously, the clergy passed it by 28 to 12 with two abstentions, while the laity passed it by 49 to 10, with one abstention.