[UPDATED: 5/15/09 12:57 p.m. with Fond du Lac added]
[UPDATED: 5/15/09 7:15 a.m. with Oregon added]

The vast majority of Episcopal Church standing committees in the United States are releasing the results of their votes on the consent process for the diocese of Northern Michigan — or say they’ll release them when their voting is complete.

With 22 more standing committees weighing in, here’s my count:

Committees voting for consent: 15
Committees voting against consent: 39

StandFirmInFaith.com reports that the standing committees of Eau Claire, Louisiana and Western Michigan have also decided to withhold consent, pushing the number of ‘no’ votes to 41.

All of the votes below have been confirmed this week by members of the standing committee in each diocese, with the exception of Alabama and San Diego. In Alabama, two clergy members say the bishop announced the results at a clergy meeting. In San Diego, communications director Hannah Miller confirmed the vote.

Here are the latest returns, as confirmed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Missouri: No
Olympia: Yes
Arizona: No
S. Ohio: Yes
W. Kansas: No
Fort Worth: No
Kentucky: Yes
Springfield: No

Rhode Island: No
SW Virginia: No
Montana: No
E. Carolina: Yes
W. Louisiana: No
W. New York: Yes
Oklahoma: No
E. Tennessee: Yes
Albany: No
Alabama: No
San Diego: No
Central Gulf Coast: No
Northern Michigan: Yes
Oregon: No
Fond du Lac: No

The standing committees of South Dakota, W. North Carolina and Southern Virginia have already cast their votes, but have decided not to reveal their votes to the Episcopalians who live in their diocese.

Tentative dates for Standing Committee votes:
Central Florida: May 14 21
Easton: May 15
Ohio: May 18
North Carolina: May 18
Atlanta: May 18
Pittsburgh: May 18
Delaware: May 19
New Jersey: May 21
Colorado: May 21
Hawaii: May 23
Lexington: May
Alaska: Possibly May 31 or June 1
Upper South Carolina: June
Wyoming: June
Kansas: June 16

Several other dioceses are in the discernment process, but have not scheduled a vote. Some may simply not vote at all. An abstention counts as a ‘no’ vote.

Voting is already underway or has just wrapped up in Eastern Oregon, North Dakota, and Nebraska. I’m told Eastern Oregon is voting by mail, Nebraska has been voting by e-mail and North Dakota is also doing long-distance voting. In Alaska, officials are under the impression that the standing committee must meet in person to take the vote, so the plan — a standing committee member told me a couple of weeks ago — is to fly everyone in for a meeting, probably May 31 of June 1. She estimated the cost to the diocese to hold such a meeting — about $10,000.

One more note: A priest in the diocese of Alabama says Bishop Parsley told him and others that he has decided to withhold consent from bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 9:28 am and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.