With the removal of sexual orientation as a bar to ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), pending approval of a majority of presbyteries, and the Episcopal Church's 2009 General Convention, at which sexuality issues (ordination, rites for blessing of same-gender couples) will be debated yet again, sexual orientation, especially with regard to marriage, is a central issue. Secularly, too, the topic is front-page news with the recent California same-gender marriage ruling and subsequent Proposition 8 vote and the update of the Massachusetts same-gender marriage law.