[Richelle] Thompson said the church has grappled with the issue of homosexuals in the church in a very public way and for a while now, citing the 2003 decision to ordain Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire as the church’s first openly gay bishop. Thompson said at the time of Robinson’s ordination, the Southeast Ohio Dioceses lost two churches, leaving them with 82.
Then, in 2006 what many regarded as a moratorium on ordaining openly gay bishops was put in place after controversy about the Robinson ordination. That moratorium was overturned at the Episcopal Church’s National Convention in Anaheim, Calif. in July.
Thompson was also in attendance at this year’s national convention. At the convention, it was voted that anyone could be eligible to be elected as a bishop and that being gay or not is not an impediment to serving in that capacity. As Thompson explained the decision, “all of God’s people are treasured and valued and anyone who is called and has the correct qualifications regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation may be elected as bishop.”
This is an interesting article, and it does not surprise me that Thompson says what she said. She worked under Bishop Thompson (no relation), but like most TEC leaders I met in the diocese, she disagreed with the relatively conservative bishop on many issues. She was always very nice to me by the way.
This article also highlights a phenomenon I noticed while I was an Episcopalian in southern Ohio, and that is that even in smaller towns and rural areas TEC churches are often liberal, and really a kind of haven for the few culturally/socially/morally reappraisers in the area. When I first returned to Ohio from graduate school in Atlanta, I expected parishes in rural Ohio to be conservative, and ready to challenge TEC’s leadership. What I discovered were very tiny parishes with a lot of rapidly aging reappraisers, and generally, with reappraising leadership (since often new seminarians would be placed in smaller parishes). I often wonder how some of these parishes even survive today.