The first joint meeting of the Anglican Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council met in Cape Town for eleven days in January 1993. Addressing a service of more than 10,000 people, Archbishop George Carey "described Africa as `wounded and bleeding'. He added, `No Christian can be excused from coming to the aid our African brothers and sisters in need'." "A delegation of Anglican leaders under Archbishop Carey held a meeting with South African President F.W. De Klerk that focused on the church's influence on the church's influence on the political process". The primates and the Council "rejected the concept of a special episcopal relationship for parishes opposed to the ordination of women". "Addressing the problem of AIDS, Archbishop Yona Okoth of Uganda, urged a `universal response' by asking `all governments, all churches, all religious bodies to do all in their power to fight this killer of our people". Archbishop French Chang-Him of the Indian Ocean raised the issue of cohabitation, asking "for guidance on what to do about the growing number of unmarried people who live together. `It raises the whole issue of what is marriage', Archbishop Chang-Him said. `It becomes a very theological issue'." The Consultative Council also "urged Israel to comply with a United Nations resolution that Palestinian deportees be returned to their homes on the West Bank and Gaza". The two bodies will probably not meet at the same time again. "Archbishop Eames noted the meeting did not give the primates enough time together, Archbishop Douglas Hambidge, metropolitan of British Columbia, went farther. `I am convinced that the primates and the ACC should never meet together because they have different agendas', he said".
A new legal category of relationship could be established alongside marriage, which could be called "registered domestic partnerships". This new category would be open to heterosexual and homosexual couples alike and, for public policy purposes, would be legally equivalent to marriage".