There’s no pride in bashing gays, Bishop
If you’re reading, Bishop Michael, I really didn’t want to have another pop at you about your trenchant and sometimes bizarre views about what constitutes Christian truth. As to the rest of you reading this, I’m sorry if it looks as if whenever Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who retires as Bishop of Rochester in September, makes a public statement I launch an attack on him. Believe me, the routine is tiresome for me, too.
But his comments in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, which he is expected to repeat today, that homosexuals should “repent and be changed” cannot pass unchallenged. Or rather, they should not go challenged only by homosexual rights campaigners, such as Peter Tatchell, who you would expect to be somewhat antipathetic to the expressed view.
Because Dr Nazir-Ali is wrong in the eyes of a broad swath of kind and tolerant people of differing sexualities, social mores and of the Christian faith, other faiths and no faith at all. Badly, badly wrong.
I say that I didn’t want to have another fight with him because such fights polarise Anglicans, and we’re at our best when we’re talking. I went to a private lunch recently, to which Dr Nazir-Ali was also invited. He didn’t show. The seat next to me went empty. I do hope he didn’t bottle it; it’s important that religious leaders don’t just inhabit comfort zones with friends who share their views.
Dr Nazir-Ali’s friends are the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Foca), who this week will try to get the Anglican schism over homosexuality going again, while denying that they are doing any such thing. Had he turned up to our lunch, I would have asked him why he and Foca are so convinced that they know the mind of God better than those who disagree with them and that their interpretation of scripture is with absolute certainty the one and only true one.
When I write about the Church and homosexuality, inevitably I receive messages that read simply “Romans 1:26-27″ or “1 Corinthians 6:9″, as if that settles something. We can argue scripture until we’re at the pearly gates. But the essential difference between Dr Nazir-Ali and me is this: I accept, disappointing as I would find it in my fiery furnace, that he might be right. By contrast, he and his friends cannot accept that I might be right, claim that I can’t be a proper Christian, and some of them go so far as to suggest that I’ll burn in hell for all eternity.
And there’s the real problem: it’s an issue of intolerance. Anglicanism has long been characterised by a broad tolerance. But my tolerance of Dr Nazir-Ali and his friends, that they are Anglicans with whom I happen vehemently to disagree, doesn’t seem to be reciprocated.
See There’s no pride in bashing gays, Bishop Telegraph.co.uk
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Quotes from New Hampshire’s gay marriage debate
“Thank you!” — Gay marriage supporters to lawmakers as they left the Statehouse following Wednesday’s gay marriage vote.
“A lot of New Hampshire families have come to know people in their families who are gay — co-workers, former classmates — and that’s what really made this difference. We are no longer talking about an issue. We are talking about people.” — The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, the church’s only openly gay bishop.
“This legislation makes clear that we understand that certain faiths do not recognize same-sex marriage, and it protects them from having to participate in marriage-related activities that violate their fundamental religious principles.” — Gov. John Lynch, as he signed the gay marriage bill into law.
“We certainly would like to see new legislators and a governor who keeps his word on the issue. If he tells the voters he doesn’t support same sex marriage, that’s what he means. If that happens, who knows, we may be looking at repeal in the next legislative session.” — Kevin Smith, executive director of gay marriage opponent Cornerstone Policy Research. See Quotes from New Hampshire’s gay marriage debate Chicago Tribune
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Clergy gather in DC to lobby for gay rights
WASHINGTON - Months after giving an invocation at a kickoff event for President Barack Obama’s inauguration, the U.S. Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop returned to Washington on Monday to persuade Congress to pass an expanded hate crimes bill.
V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire is among more than 300 clergy members from different faiths who planned to spend Tuesday lobbying on Capitol Hill for support of a bill that broadens the definition of hate crimes to include those motivated by a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. The House passed the legislation 249-175 last week over conservatives’ objections.
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NH gay bishop among hundreds of clergy gathering in DC to lobby … Fox44 News
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Clergy gather in DC to lobby for gay rights Examiner.com
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CALIFORNIA FAITH LEADERS PROTEST INJUSTICE FOR GAY & LESBIAN FAMILIES ON TAX DAY, APRIL 15th.
“As we rush to the post office to send in our tax dollars today, let us remember those gay and lesbian families who pay their taxes lawfully and faithfully, yet have been denied equality under the law by a majority of voters in California,” said Samuel M. Chu, Interim Executive Director of California Faith for Equality and a Presbyterian pastor. “Our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have equal responsibility under the law, but not equal rights. I speak on behalf of a diversity of faith leaders committed to equality and our respective faiths all agree that to take away the rights of any minority group, as did Proposition 8 here in California, is wrong.”
Rabbi Denise Eger, of Congregation Kol-Ami in West Hollywood and one of the founding members of California Faith for Equality said, “Gay and lesbian married couples face continued discrimination at both federal and state levels. While some couples can file in their states as ‘married,’ they are required to file on the federal level as ’single’.
Eger, President of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis added, “Federal law treats same-sex couples as strangers, thereby denying them the 1,138 federal rights, benefits and protections available to heterosexual married couples. This is not only an affront to the dignity of their families, but to those couples who want to pay their fair share. They continue to be penalized and discriminated by this unequal treatment”.
“California Faith for Equality will continue to be a powerful and uniting force for equality for all LGBT persons,” said Chu.
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Faith forms a bond for a lesbian priest and a Mormon father of three
Who could have foreseen what would happen between the Mormon filmmaker and the lesbian priest?
Not Douglas Hunter, even after he took a leap of faith and trained his camera on the Rev. Susan Russell.
And maybe not even Russell, who had undergone a remarkable transformation from one-time suburban soccer mom to priest and outspoken champion of gay rights.
But the friendship that took root when Hunter asked Russell to play the central role in his documentary about same-sex marriage and theology would lead two people from different worlds to a new understanding of themselves and their faiths.
“We’re all telling the same stories about God’s work in our lives,” said Hunter, 40, a father of three from Pasadena who discovered Russell on the Internet.
Technology may have provided the bridge, but it was an ancient religious calling that drew Hunter to Russell, a senior associate priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.
Hunter felt a religious obligation to cross the same boundary Jesus is said to have traversed 2,000 years ago when he spoke of embracing the outsider.
No group was further outside Mormon circles, Hunter thought, than gays and lesbians. Mormonism, he knew, viewed homosexual acts as sins, and Mormons would become among the most generous supporters of California’s Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage that was approved by voters last fall.
See Faith forms a bond for a lesbian priest and a Mormon father of three
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
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Sharpton decries churches pushing Prop. 8
From the pulpit of Tabernacle Baptist Church on Sunday, Rev. Al Sharpton called out the Mormon Church and other conservative faiths for mobilizing to support Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage in California while refusing to be as involved in any other social concerns.
“It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being delegated into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners,” Sharpton told a packed audience on Jan. 11. See Sharpton decries churches pushing Prop. 8 Southern Voice
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