put the debate on whether AV was complicated to shame

Women Bishops was the subject of the Stockton Deanery Synod (a sort of Council of representatives of the Church of England in Churches north of the river in Stockton).  It was a special and important meeting, so I decided to go to that, even though I was also supposed to be presenting the revised constitution to the Northern Region Lib Dems (choices, choices !), but then what are mobile phones for.
The meeting was much more interesting than I thought it would be, after all I had already decided some time ago that women Bishops had to be.  Nothing is that simple though, and much of our debate was around how to address the issue of how to accomodate people who could not accept women Bishops.  How very different from party politics, especially locally.  "A vote of one's enough" was the catch phrase of one Labour Leader here, warmly embraced by his followers  Get the vote through, do what you want and blow anyone else is the mentality.  Everyone else can like it or lump it.  Is the result the best for the people being governed ?  The best model of governance ? well I leave you to answer that one.
Then for a most interesting way of voting.  Deanery Synod does not have a vote that counts on the issue, that is taken by the Diocesan Synod (governing body for the area between Tees and Tyne), but what we decide colours  how those reps vote.  We could of course have had a show of hands on each of the points we were considering.  However we were asked to take a post it note (the stronger the colour, the stronger we felt about the issue) and post along the wall of the Church.
Firstly how we felt about having women Bishops.  For at the end near the altar, against the other end, and anywhere between for shades of opinion.  That was easy for me.
Then how we felt on how strong the framework should be on accomodating those who could not accept women Bishops.  I, and I strongly suspect others, were glad of the opportunity to be able to express our view in a way that was not "black and white".
Our Discesan Reps were then able to view and ponder on what people thought, and the strength of that opinon.   Puts the debate on whether AV was complicated to shame - yes it was complicated in a way, but showed very clearly just how people felt on the issues.