If you can't change the rules, change the meaning of the words in the rules!

"Re the Church Council's 2nd recommendation, the next issue of the WA Network News, which is being printed now, has two substantial stories with information about recommendation #2. The first story reports on the Church Council meeting. Betsy Carlson quotes Church Council members as stating that there have been many blessings of SSUs in the ELCA and the 1993 bishops' statement has been used (the concluding language about pastoral care) to justify those blessings. A second story reports on
Betsy's interview of Ken Sauer, who was chair of the conference of bishops in 1993, in which Ken states that the bishops clearly meant the opposite--there should be no blessings. The problem is that the 1993 statement has more often been used to support the opposite intention, which is also the intent of the Church Council's (and task force's) recommendation. Many people are probably voting for #2 thinking that it says we won't start blessing SSUs, not realizing that the recommendation has the opposite intention and that some ELCA clergy have been blessing SSUs for years. In fact, the blessings were happening in the predecessor bodies prior to the 1988 merger."