[P]eople who have been monitoring the situation for various human rights organizations have suggested that the election may alter political dynamics enough to make passage of the bill in its current form less likely.
The small yet affluent Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, covers a significant chunk of the Anglican Communion's budget.
To the parishoners of Truro Church in Falls Church who have aligned themselves with this type of despicable intolerance, go find another place to worship if you believe so hardily that homosexuals are evil! Or is it a matter of money too?
Ahmanson was a disciple of the Rev. Rousas John Rushdoony, the father of Christian Reconstructionism. Rushdoony died in 2001 with the Ahmansons at his bedside. He advocated basing the American legal system on biblical laws, including stoning adulterers and homosexuals.Ahmanson [said in 2004]: "I think what upsets people is that Rushdoony seemed to think--and I'm not sure about this--that a godly society would stone people for the same thing that people in ancient Israel were stoned," Ahmanson was quoted as saying. "I no longer consider that essential."
"It would still be a little hard to say that if one stumbled on a country that was doing that, that it is inherently immoral, to stone people for these things," he added. "But I don't think it's at all a necessity."
I urge people to read the entire two part article from which this excerpt comes. The writer, an official of the Washington Diocese, seems to have carefully traced the attempted hijacking of mainstream American Episcopals on behalf of GOP theocrats.
The anti-gay crowd wants to be governed by Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who thinks this of gays:
We argue that it is a blatant lie against Almighty God that homosexuality is their God-given urge and inclination. For us, it is better seen as an acquired aberration.Protagonists of homosexuality try to elevate this aberration, unknown even in animal relationships, beyond divine scrutiny, while church leaders, who are called to proclaim the undiluted word of God like the prophets of old, are unashamedly looking the other way.
It is rare to find such a combination of bigotry and ignorance in one person -- but he's the right wing Episcopal's champion.
However, from what I've read, it looks like the mainstream Episcopals intend to hang together. There are some observers who think the Archbishop of Centerbury, by allowing himself to be rolled by Akinola, may find himself out of a job:http://www.telegraph...
The text of the American bishops' statement is damaging. This is a national Church speaking with an (almost) united voice. The casus belli has shifted from the ordination of Gene Robinson, a bishop who is in a relationship with another man, to allegations of bullying by a group of primates led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.Dr Williams now finds himself out of favour with liberals and moderate conservatives in his own Communion. And, harsh though it may sound, he has only himself to blame.
In the past couple of years, he has allowed conservative Anglicanism to be hijacked by extremists.
Again, I don't want to talk about the internals of Episcopal church politics, but sometimes it is intertwined with the human rights issue.
If anyone is interested in what the individual bishops have to say about these issues, someone is collecting links here: http://telling-beads...
It's interesting that Europe is losing organized religion. I guess they looked hard at themselves after WWII and found it to be a divisive force? I don't know. But Spain has gay marriage. And Mexico City just approved civil unions. And those traditionally were strongholds of Catholicism.
I wonder if the American Episcopal church will get even closer to the ELCA Lutheran church here -- they already have a "communion" agreement. According to Wikipedia: "The [ELCA] Church maintains full communion relationships with member churches of the Lutheran World Federation (which is a communion of 140 autonomous national/regional Lutheran church bodies in 78 countries around the world, representing nearly 66 million Christians), the Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ."
Seems like those churches should pool resources and have an international alliance.
The Lutherans seem a little bit behind the Episcopals on gay issues, but they seem willing to tolerate the differences, and officially welcome homosexuals. Apparently some blessings of gay unions are taking place. http://en.wikipedia....
And they're good on women's issues generally speaking.
According to my wife, an ex-Lutheran -- the Lutherans have the best church singing of all the denominations. She said it is common to go into a church and hear the entire congregation singing the different voice parts during hymn singing.
Another issue which someone needs to research, which I have only heard through the grapevine, is that supposedly there has been an attempt in past years to introduce legislation at the Virginia General Assembly which would somehow give greater statutory rights to churches that want to break off from governing church bodies and take church property with them. The person who told me this didn't know all the details, so I'm not sure if this is accurate or not. Perhaps someone who's down at the General Assembly a lot might know what this is all about and if it is true. I'd hate to think that persons within these dissenting church groups might use our legislature this way, so if you can find out anything about this I'd be interested.
I'm not any minority. But I've just seen too many people, close friends, hurt by prejudice. Maybe the bigots don't know that even adults of a put-upon group suffer emotionally, as well as physically and financially.
I understand that one of the Va. breakaway churches reached a settlement recently with the diocese. It seemed fair to me. The current, breakaway group had bought land a few years ago to build upon. They get to keep that. They are renting the current building for 5 years at $1 a year plus upkeep of the building), at which time the diocese will take it over.
Akinola is said to be a buddy of the horrible bishop Kunonga in Zimbabwe, who works hand in hand with Mugabe. I have a few interesting citations on the Zimbabwe bishop, but here's how he got his house:
He [Kunonga]was rewarded by Mugabe with St Marnock's, 2000 acres of prime farmland 15 kilometers outside Harare , confiscated from its previous white owner, 25-year-old Marcus Hale. The bishop installed his son in the seven-bedroom farmhouse, which overlooked a lake and sweeping fields of wheat and soya: the lake remains, but the house is now derelict and the crops have been replaced by weeds. The bishop, a short, thickset man who wears a jeweled cross over his cassock, also evicted 50 black workers and their families from the property.
Rowan Williams recently gave Kunonga a verbal wrist slap for being close to Mugabe. But the allegations against Kunonga (from whites and blacks) suggest he's a first-class thug. For example, Kunonga licensed the acting vice-president of Zimbabwe, Joseph Msika, a man on record as saying that whites are not human beings, to act as a deacon of the church. Akinola, for his part, had Kunonga speak at an African Conference.
Here are some citations to that can of worms:
http://www.guardian.... contains this sum up:
Yet curiously, Akinola seems much more obsessed with what gay white men get up to than with some of the abuses in Africa. He has uttered not a word of condemnation of Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of Harare, a crony of the Mugabe regime, who has been accused by his own black parishioners of seizing white property, evicting black farm workers, and calling for the assasination of his church opponents. Indeed, Akinola invited Kunonga to address a plenary session of the All African Conference of Bishops.
Here's an excerpt:
" The commitments of the Communion are not only to certain theological positions on the question of sexual ethics but also to a manifest and credible respect for the proper liberties of homosexual people, a commitment again set out in successive Lambeth Conference Resolutions over many decades. I share the concerns expressed about situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten these proper liberties. It is impossible to read this report without being aware that in many places - including Western countries with supposedly `liberal' attitudes - hate crimes against homosexual people have increased in recent years and have taken horrifying and disturbing forms." No-one reading this report can be complacent about such a situation, and the Church is challenged to show that it is truly a safe place for people to be honest and where they may be confident that they will have their human dignity respected, whatever serious disagreements about ethics may remain. It is good to know that the pastoral care of homosexual people is affirmed clearly by so many provinces.