Jacksonville’s Carole Adams said she and her lesbian partner of 40 years will not return to the Episcopal Church even if its bishops and deputies approve liturgies for same-sex unions during their triennial convention beginning today in California.
Adams, 65, said she was heartened by the 2003 election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire but left in disgust in 2005 during the resulting protest and exodus of conservatives from the denomination, including her former Southside parish.
“Why would you ever want to turn back to that controversy?” Adams said.
[blockquote]“We have, in some ways, an apartheid system where some of the baptized have access to all of the sacraments, and some don’t,†Russell said.[/blockquote]
This is an out and out misstatement of fact. It’s like saying that smokers are not permitted to smoke in an ammunition factory and the logic then goes that they face discrimination just because they smoke. Everyone faces discrimination for certain behavior. It is made clear in the criminal and civil codes of our government.
“I expect, 30 years from now, we will have more inclusion,†said the Rev. Susan Russell, a lesbian priest from Pasadena and president of Integrity, a national group that advocates gay rights within the Episcopal Church.
Few members, but more inclusion…
One wonders what she means by “more” inclusion? Is there any stopping point for inclusion for Rev Russell? How about polygamists in committed unions as priests and in marriages.
Or perhaps it just means that the TEC will ONLY have gay priests and Bishops. That would certainly be “more” .
Umm, Ms Russell: “Thirty years?” Judging by your own Church’s statistics, you’ll be lucky if TEC lasts that long. An “apartheid system?” Strange, but I’ve never experienced anything even remotely like that in my forty some-odd years in Anglican Christianity. May I ask you where [i]you’ve[/i] experienced it?
The same people who throw around the term apartheid are probably the same folks who claim that the “discrimnination” against gays (By their not being able to marry) is just like what African Americans experinced before civil rights. Right!!-gays are being regularly lynched, denied an education, can’t vote, have seperate water fountains and have to sit in the back of the bus. Yep, and all the gays have to live in gay only townships.. The similarities between Apartheid and gays not being able to marry are striking. Puhleeeeze!! How insulting to people who actually had to live under those systems.
Rev Susan forgets that anything with a body temperature can walk into an ECUSA parish and take communion. Anywhere, anyplace, anytime. Access to sacraments…Hogwash. How many straight or gay couples actually *want* any kind of “sacrament” to be added to their “union”? Is ECUSA going to start requiring shacked up couples (of anything?) to get the coveted piece of paper? No, what is desired is that every marriage of normal couples is to be degraded to the level of Gene Robinson & concubine. Oh wait; it already happened! We just need a pamphlet to make it official now that we’re doing it.
I’ve been fascinated that Rev Russell will not take her pastoral skills and advocacy style out of the safe haven of Pasadena and bring her kind of changes to just your average TEC parish. Isn’t that what we’ve been hearing from Integrity, and VGR: how their views will “fill the void” in the parishes and dioceses that are experiencing decline? How about serving in one of the “remaining” fragment dioceses? ANYWHERE typical outside of Pasadena? I sense that there is a real fear of being ignored or rejected, so her advocacy and pastoral skills can ONLY be employed in friendliest circles. If one TRULY wants ALL the sacraments for ALL the baptized, then surely its time to go where the field is ripe…and uncomfortable.