Southern Africa's Anglicans Vote Down Prayers for Same-Sex Couples, This Time by Seven Votes

For queer Anglicans in Southern Africa, this week ended with a familiar answer delivered by an unfamiliar margin.

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) rejected two motions aimed at including LGBTQIA+ members at its 38th Provincial Synod, held in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, from September 20 to 23, MambaOnline reported. The first, and more modest, of the two failed by just seven votes.

It is the second time in two years that the church’s governing body has said no, and it happened at the last synod Archbishop Thabo Makgoba will preside over before he retires.

What was on the table

Neither motion asked for same-sex marriage, or even for blessings.

The first came from the Diocese of False Bay. Proposed by Dr Ashley Petersen and seconded by Bishop Stafford Moses, it asked that “members of our church who are in committed same sex unions be prayed for within ACSA,” according to allAfrica’s report, and called for a report on how such a “ministry of inclusion” would be received. The motion also acknowledged that the church’s earlier decisions “may have caused pain to people who sought inclusion, recognition and pastoral care,” the Cape Argus reported.

It was defeated by 78 votes to 71, with 10 abstentions.

The second motion, from the Diocese of Johannesburg and presented by the Rev Dr Matthew Wright and Tebogo Molefe, asked for an alternative liturgy to serve the pastoral needs of the LGBTQIA+ community, explicitly distinct from marriage or the blessing of civil unions. It lost more decisively: 98 against, 61 in favour, 10 abstaining.

The synod’s official communiqué, published by the Anglican Communion News Service, records simply that members “rejected two motions in regard to initiating a ‘ministry of inclusion’ for parishioners in same-sex relationships."

"We pray for avocados”

Makgoba backed the first motion, and he did not hide his frustration at the logic of refusing it. “We pray for trees, we pray for cars, we pray for avocados!” he told the synod, according to allAfrica, a reference to his own avocado farm in Limpopo. The point was hard to miss: a church that will bless a harvest has been unwilling to formally pray for two of its own members who love each other.

He has made versions of this argument before. Ahead of the 2024 synod, he observed that many young people “find it difficult to understand why we can bless their dogs, cats, and guinea pigs in services commemorating St Francis of Assisi but not their LGBTQI friends in committed relationships,” as The Citizen reported. That year the synod voted down, by show of hands, a proposal to let bishops approve blessings for same-sex couples in willing parishes, along with a set of pastoral prayers for members in civil unions, Episcopal News Service reported. Australian outlet The Other Cheek notes that Makgoba was reportedly “pained” when similar motions were defeated in 2016 as well.

This synod was his farewell. The communiqué says he received a standing ovation ahead of his scheduled retirement in September 2027.

Why this matters beyond the pews

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa is not a small or marginal institution. Its Provincial Synod brings together bishops, clergy and laity from dioceses across South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and St Helena, according to allAfrica. The Other Cheek describes it as the most progressive Anglican body on the continent, and it is due to host the next Primates’ Meeting, called by Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, in Johannesburg from February 28 to March 5.

That creates a striking gap between church and state in South Africa itself. The country’s Constitution, in force since 1997, was the first in the world to protect sexual orientation, and same-sex marriage has been legal since the Civil Union Act took effect on November 30, 2006, as Wikipedia’s overview summarises. South Africa is still the only African country where same-sex couples can marry. Yet within one of its oldest churches, a same-sex couple married under South African law still cannot be formally prayed for as a couple.

The vote also lands in a year when questions of queer belonging in Anglican spaces have been unusually public. In July, a row over whether Cape Town’s Anglican-affiliated Bishops Diocesan College should keep flying the Pride flag became national news, and Inclusive and Affirming Ministries (IAM), a South African LGBTQIA+ Christian organisation, published an open letter arguing that LGBTQIA+ inclusion “is not opposed to the Christian faith."

"You belong”

IAM’s response to this week’s vote, quoted by MambaOnline, managed to be both honest and steady.

“To every LGBTQIA+ Anglican, and to every family and clergy member who hoped for a different outcome: we see your disappointment, and we share it,” the organisation said. “Coming two years after Synod declined similar proposals in 2024, and amid the public debate at Bishops Diocesan College, this decision will feel like one more closed door.”

But IAM also pointed to what the numbers actually show. A seven-vote margin on the first motion is not a church firmly settled against its queer members. “The movement toward full inclusion is real, and it is gaining ground,” IAM said, adding a practical reminder that matters to anyone sitting in a parish this Sunday: “Nothing decided this week prevents a priest or chaplain from offering pastoral care.”

It closed with the line that queer people of faith most need to hear after a week like this one: “You belong. You are loved. You are not alone.”

What comes next

Formally, nothing changes. ACSA’s existing position stands, and the church will enter a leadership transition with the question unresolved. But the arithmetic has moved. In 2024 the proposals fell on a show of hands; in 2026, a motion asking only that same-sex couples be prayed for fell just seven votes short.

For LGBTQIA+ Anglicans across South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, that is cold comfort this weekend. It is also, as IAM put it, evidence that the people who hope for a different answer next time are no longer a small minority in the room.