Of “Revision” of Marriage Rites

The debate over whether the proposed marriage rites authorized under Resolution B012 of the 2018 General Convention constitute “a revision of the BCP” or “trial use in accordance with Article X” is moot. Article X provides for the authorization of trial rites "throughout this church" as part of the revision process of the BCP. 

So when someone says these rites were "not proposed as a revision" that only means they were not proposed under the first part of Article X as a “first reading” to be approved finally at the next session of General Convention. That is a procedure only undertaken when rites have been tested and are ready for their final form

It is not at all unusual for a rite to be authorized in the manner of B012. Since the early 60s, in the leadup to the wholesale revision of the BCP in 1976/79, the various revisions of individual liturgies were published, promulgated, and authorized “for trial use” until, in 1976, the “first reading” of the whole new BCP was approved, and the same (with only a couple of minor emendations to take account of the approval of the ordination of women) ratified in 1979. The marriage rites are now in the exactly the same situation as the numerous revisions of other rites, including matrimony, that were published from 1964 on; that is, as Article X says, they are authorized “for trial use throughout this  Church, as an alternative at any time or times to the established Book of Common Prayer or to any section or Office thereof,” as “a proposed revision of the whole Book or of any portion thereof...” (emphasis mine.)

Meanwhile, part of the reason Bishop Love of Albany has been found wanting is due to the marriage canon (I.18.1), which states that all clergy may solemnize marriages using “any of the liturgical forms authorized by this Church.” The rites are unquestionably authorized, and Bishop Love interfered with that clerical right, though he had absolutely no need to do so. 

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG