Same-Sex Marriage Issue Could End in a Big Divorce
By Brian Adeba
January 16th, 2008

Matters of the bedroom have played a pivotal role in shaping the Anglican Church. Almost 500 years ago, the controversy that helped create the church was over whether it was lawful for King Henry VIII to marry Anne Boleyn, one of his queen's ladies-in-waiting. Desperate for a male heir, whom his wife Catherine of Aragon could not produce, Henry VIII sought an annulment to the marriage so he could marry Ms. Boleyn. Pope Clement VII of the Roman Catholic Church, which all of England subscribed to at the time, refused to grant permission for the annulment. Furious, Henry VIII declared independence from Rome and so the Anglican Church was born.

This time around, a bedroom matter perhaps more radical than Henry VIII could ever have fathomed threatens to leave another historical landmark on Anglicanism. But rather than rally the Anglican Church under one roof, this modern-day bedroom controversy threatens to tear the church apart. And into this fray entered the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa when last October it voted 177 to 99 to recognise the blessing of marriage for same-sex couples who have been civilly married. Ottawa became the first diocese to do so in Canada. Other dioceses with similar inclinations include Montreal and Niagara Falls. the rest