Oh, Happy Day 


The new presiding bishop of the U. S. Episcopal Church speaks the truth on homosexuality. 

Katharine Jefferts Schori has been elected as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million member Episcopal Church, of which I am a member. This is a hopeful move for several reasons. It is first and foremost a validation by the political church that wisdom, tolerance, and the capability to love as Jesus taught are not only not restricted to members of one gender. These qualities are to be found to such a degree in women that they can serve equally in the capacity of leadership previously reserved only for men.

Although I have long been a gay activist, I have long supported equal rights for all women. Since the early 1970's I have seen that sex discrimination is the fundamental inequity in our society that generates both misogyny and homophobia. Why so? A certain unfortunate analogy has long been embedded in church history: the Church is the bride of Christ, essentially a male, and the family is to mirror this, with the man as Christ and the woman as the Church. Paul says fairly plainly, that in a marriage, the man is to be the head and rule the woman, who presumably supplies the "heart," at least the feelings.

We don't have to call this patriarchal presumption, and we don't have to call it poppycock or even more a more vulgar substance. But we do have to call it for what it is: an untruth that was told to the Church by leaders in an ancient society dominated by men. That's what it was, and that is what it remains. Of course, there will always be the rationalizations of this position by those devoted to it in the face of all counter evidence. Perhaps there will even always be the ultimate rationalization: that this blatant inequity is God's will.

I have decided in my old age that the best way to combat these distortions or untruths, or whatever you might call them is simply to never stop speaking the truth. Speak it plainly, non-violently, and patiently, but persistently. God did not create women without a head, and God did not create men without a heart. They both have both. Equally. For all time.

And though it is possibly a somewhat redundant addition, I will comment also on the idea of same-sex ordination and marriage as equal to opposite-sex ordination and marriage. When it is fully understood that both men and women equally have hearts and minds, then it will not seem so necessary that they marry only each other to complete themselves, and it will not seem so improbable that men could love men and women could love women, since they are already complete. Then it would be seen that the purpose of marriage is not to make two halves a whole, but to make two wholes into a greater whole, a relationship for the benefit of both and grounded in Christ.
 
According to a Reuters news release, when interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual, to which she replied. 
 
"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender." 
 
This is the truth, Bishop Jefferts Schori. Just keep repeating it again and again in the face of all irrational resistance to it. With these words you are bringing the Anglican Communion closer into the embrace of the Jesus Christ that we all share in.  

Posted: Mon - June 19, 2006 at 09:00 PM          

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