'No great slapping of backs' following Anglican same-sex reversal, Quebec bishop says
Kate McGillivray | CBC News | Posted: July 12, 2016 11:07 PM | Last Updated: July 12, 2016
Quebec Anglican bishop says 'everybody is upset' after learning about voting error
Quebec Bishop Dennis Drainville said there was "no great slapping of backs" when news broke that an earlier vote rejecting same-sex marriage in the Anglican church had been reversed.
Instead, Drainville said, some members of his church are feeling shaken.
"I've been in favour of [same-sex marriage] for years, but there's no joy in Mudville today. Everybody is upset," he told CBC News.
The Anglican clergy appeared to have very narrowly voted down a motion to allow same-sex marriage this past week at a national meeting.
But the decision was reversed on Tuesday afternoon after delegates requested a detailed hard copy of the electronic voting records and discovered that a single vote had been miscounted.
That was enough to give the motion the two-thirds majority required to pass.
'Deep differences'
After the news broke, Archbishop Fred Hiltz acknowledged there were "deep differences" within the Anglican church around the issue.
As for the voting error, Drainville blames the company hired by the church to conduct the vote.
"The company that was in charge of this, to say that they were red-faced was an understatement," he said.
Prior to the vote being reversed, several bishops said they planned to go ahead with same-sex marriages regardless of the vote, including the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal, Mary Irwin-Gibson.