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		</div><p>The Anglican Church of Canada has voted against allowing same-sex marriages by the thinnest of margins after nearly a week of passionate debate about blessing the unions.</p>
<p>More than 200 delegates attending the six-day General Synod 2016 north of Toronto rejected the resolution after 60-plus speakers made their points, with most supporting the resolution.</p>
<p>Same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada since 2005 and yesterday&#8217;s vote puts the Anglican Church &#8211; the third largest in Canada &#8211; out of step with most Canadians, including prime minister Justin Trudeau, who recently took part in a gay pride parade in Toronto.</p>
<p>The resolution required two-thirds support from each of three orders &#8211; the lay, clergy and bishops &#8211; to pass.</p>
<p>The bishops voted 68.42% in favour of the resolution and the lay delegates 72.22% in favour.</p>
<p>But the clergy voted 66.23%, missing the percentage needed by a single vote.</p>
<p>The vote sparked bitter disappointment among some members.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is breaking my heart that there are people who see gay marriage as a separation from God and from love,&#8221; said Eliot Waddingham, 24, a transgender person from Ottawa, who was an observer at the conference and worried that the vote was tantamount to a &#8220;death sentence&#8221; for the church.</p>
<p>&#8220;Woah. One vote,&#8221; said the Rev Jeremy Smith in a tweet. &#8220;Prayers for all those wounded by the anti-LGBTQ vote.&#8221;<br />
The electronic voting was conducted secretly at the request of delegates as a privacy measure.</p>
<p>Earlier, Archbishop Colin Johnson of Toronto cited his own decades of marriage in arguing for the motion.</p>
<p>&#8220;I want my gay and lesbian colleagues to have the same joy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I believe it&#8217;s the right thing to do.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some speakers urged delegates to reject the resolution, with one saying it would cause &#8220;ghettos of resentment&#8221; if allowed, while several aboriginal delegates denounced it as condoning an &#8220;abomination&#8221; and disobedience of God.</p>
<p>The General Synod is held every three years and the vote was the culmination of work that began when the last General Synod, the church&#8217;s legislative body, asked a panel to come up with a draft motion.</p>
<p>Even if it had passed, the decision would have needed to be affirmed by the next General Synod in 2019, which could have made its own amendments.</p>
<p>If the resolution passed it would have changed the denomination&#8217;s definition of marriage and would have permitted clergy to conduct gay marriages.</p>
<p>The vote followed complaints about bullying during weekend discussions on the resolution in smaller working groups. In remarks ahead of the vote, Archbishop Fred Hiltz urged respectful discussions on a topic that has proven bitterly divisive.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some members of our synod are deeply hurt. Some of them are deeply offended. Some are feeling unsafe to continue to speak lest they be reprimanded,&#8221; he told the gathering.</p>
<p>&#8220;This kind of behaviour is not appropriate. It&#8217;s unacceptable.&#8221;<br />
About 1.6 million Canadians identify themselves as Anglican, according to Statistics Canada.</p>
<p>The US Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the United States, is alone among Anglican bodies in approving gay marriage and has faced a backlash for its support of same-sex unions.</p>
<p>Earlier this year Anglican leaders temporarily restricted the role of the US Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church&#8217;s acceptance of gay marriage.</p>
<p>Other Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand and Scotland have taken steps towards accepting same-sex relationships.</p>
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