U.S. Episcopalians convening in Ohio with unity threatened by role of gays

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060612/NEWS01/606120346

A church under strain
U.S. Episcopalians convening in Ohio with unity threatened by role of gays
BY DENISE SMITH AMOS | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Three years after the Episcopal Church (USA) consecrated its first openly gay bishop, it still struggles with issues affecting gays and lesbians and their rights within the church.

Tuesday, the church's triennial General Convention opens in Columbus, drawing up to 10,000 bishops, clergy and lay people from around the nation and the world. Among the many proposals up for vote are measures to halt or limit the selection of gay bishops and prevent Episcopal churches from blessing same-sex unions.

Church leaders fear these issues will overshadow other important decisions, widen rifts between conservative Episcopalians and liberal ones, and between American Episcopalian leaders and many foreign Anglican leaders....

MORE



"We're going to come together and disagree and argue with each other and, in the end, come out with a unity that I hope our brothers and sisters around the world will accept," said Bishop Kenneth Price Jr., acting bishop in Southern Ohio, which includes 82 churches in 40 counties.

I just do not get it at all.

Here's the LTTE which led off the opinion page of the Cincy Enquirer this morning, the same paper from which I gleaned the article on the Episcopalians: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060612/EDIT0202/606120302/1090

Blame 'activist judges' for gay marriage fight
Letters to the editor

Let's not forget that this gay marriage fight is not a fight picked by Republicans. It was picked by a handful of activist judges in Massachusetts who sought to legislate new "rights" out of thin air from the bench and undefined marriage for the rest of the country, despite the will of the people. A United States constitutional amendment is the only way to keep the judiciary in its place. This is not about equality. Marriage is not a right. This is about special interests and balance of powers. Civil unions would be no different from marriages, except in name. This is about gay couples wanting to be called something that makes them feel more mainstream than they are.

People are sick of special interests in the government, and after the reversal of sodomy laws, gay bishops, and now even gay high schools, people are really sick of gay activists and their neurotic obsession with attention and acceptance.

Robert Moon, Colerain Township

I went to a girls camp in the late 30's and 40's and private high schools and college. Guess what? These people were always with us and we knew them and did not care. They just did not and do not make my world at all scary. People who wish to rule how I live, now they are the scary ones to me.

...full inclusion of GLBT people in the life, worship, and ministry of their church. Should that minority group split from the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), it would have relatively little impact.

However, in the worldwide Anglican communion, the majority of Anglicans (Anglicans = Epispopalians) are from the "Global South" (primarily Africa, Asia, and portions of South America) and hold more conservative views on human sexuality. The conservative group in the US has set up a network of churches that is allied with the international conservatives and is seeking international recognition as the one, true, orthodox Anglican body in the US, tossing the "liberals" (the actual US majority) out of the international group.

In reality, Anglicans from the global south are Talibangelicals in all but name. They don't give a snake's fart about the "middle way" which is at the heart of Anglican tradition; if it is not an extremely narrow minded, literalist interpretation that makes the Southern Baptist Conference look like the Unitarian-Universalist Association, it is "a betrayal of God's Holy Word." And that goes for just about every aspect of doctrine, dogma and social view, not just human sexuality.

...but you're absolutely right.