A long-awaited report on gay unions from the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music suggests that the Episcopal Church "allow dioceses to find their own way in the matter." It's already the unofficial policy of the church—and one that frustrates conservatives in the church who point to the church's 1998 declaration that homosexuality is "incompatible with Scripture." The report says the commission is "not ready, theologically or scientifically, to say a defining word about the life of homosexuals in the church … In the context of reverence—and humility—it seems best not to take absolutist positions on a national level." But at least one paper in the report says the Bible "is not definitive enough to demand a negative judgment on the present subject."

So reads the headline of an article published Saturday in Canada's National Post. The Anglican bishop of Vancouver says the recent irregular consecrations are part of a conspiracy: "My analysis is that this whole group is financed and politically managed by American conservative bishops who've lost the debate in their own church. What the American conservatives have managed to do is to export their anxiety about gays and lesbians." The unsigned article in the National Post reports, "Bishop Ingham says Anglican leaders in Africa and Asia, troubled by pressing local problems of war and poverty, have little real interest in crusading against homosexuals. They are being paid and lobbied to do so, he says, by American Anglicans (called Episcopalians) recruiting Third World church leaders to force change within ...