Sunday was the flock’s first chance to hear more about the recent decision by the Episcopal bishops , including Colorado’s Rob O’Neill, to hold off at least until 2009 on encouraging same-sex unions and openly gay bishops.
Schism looms anyway, a troubling prospect to churches like St. Philip’s, where the Rev. Theron Walker got applause Sunday when worshipper Tom Cook called out from his pew, “Thank you, Father, for being faithful (to traditional Christianity).”
Later, Walker put his head in his hands and said, only half-kidding, “The stress is driving my wife (Denise) crazy.”
First, why dwell on this story?
I think there’s a historical poetry and power connected to the Episcopal Church, whose roots are steeped in the Church of England and the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. The denomination began with the marriage issue – Henry VIII’s marriages, to be exact – and five centuries later the marriage issue, in the form of same-sex unions, may shatter it.
There is only one practical answer to the homosexual marriage issue, and I have already said it.
Marriage and civil partnerships need to be kept entirely separate. Marriage is a spiritual matter, a sacred matter and therefore protected from civil intrusions by the First Amendment. Civil unions are under the protection of the Constitution. BUt the US has a real and substantial interest in both civil unions and marriages.
The law should require all, homosexual and hetrosexual, who seek the legal benefits of civil union to undergo civil ceremony. The legislatures individually or the Congress should make the law clear that civil unions consist of one man and one woman. However, because churches are protected, they may marry whom they will, regardless of gender and number. However, such marriages will receive civil protections only as long as they meet civil requirements. Accordingly, homosexual marriages carry only the sanction of the church they are married in since they cannot be granted civil recognition or protection by law.
Such an arrangement would leave TEC free to do what they wished and it would keep homosexual marriages and polyamory from poisoning the rest of society. Heterosexuals, one man and one woman, would alone receive both a sacred blessing and civil recognition. LM
[blockquote]O’Neill is an honorable man.[/blockquote]
Brutus and all the conspirators were “honorable men”, too.
It has been revealed that Bp O’Neill was one of two at the Executive Committee of the HoB that was so vociferous and volatile in his condemnation of Bp Steenson when he tried to offer his resignation that he was brought to tears. I just can’t find the honor in beating up kindly old bishops as they try to graciously depart.
See [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6468]here (see third point)[/url] and [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6408]here[/url].