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The Anglican bishop for the Metro Vancouver region has approved same-sex marriages in her diocese, beginning Thursday.

Bishop Melissa Skelton made the decision despite delegates of the national Anglican Church narrowly defeating the proposal during a July 12 vote at their general synod in Vancouver.

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In the latest move in a worldwide Anglican conflict that has gone on for decades, Skelton seized on a compromise that the national church’s bishops offered a few days after the defeated vote, which would allow individual dioceses to adopt a “local option” on same-sex marriage rites.

Many of the country’s Anglicans had been bitterly disappointed when the motion to allow same-sex marriages lost by the slimmest of margins earlier this month.

The synod vote had required a 66.6 per cent majority from each of the church’s three delegate groups: the laity, clergy, and bishops. In a secret ballot the laity voted 80.9 per cent in favour and the clergy 73.2 per cent in favour. But the bishops of Canada defeated the motion, with two abstaining and just 62.2 per cent in favour.