The row over sexual minority status within the world’s
largest Protestant denomination came to a head with ECUSA’s ordination of its
first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, thirteen years ago. It ramped up when
ECUSA allowed same-sex marriages. The more conservative churches of the Communion
aren’t much happier with the ordination of women priests or the consecration of
women bishops.
There’s no Anglican pope. The Archbishop of Canterbury is
viewed as first among equals. Justin Welby, who now holds that office, played
it both ways in his public statements after the vote. On the one hand, he
remarked that “consequences” were necessary for ECUSA’s break with majority
practice. On the other, he was quoted in this morning’s New York Times as saying, “For me, it’s a constant source of deep
sadness, the number of people who are persecuted for their sexuality.... I wanted
to take this opportunity to say how sorry I am for the hurt and pain, in the
past and present, the church has caused.”
So stop causing it,
already. Welby delivered this well-intentioned and perhaps heartfelt, but
deeply hypocritical canard after encountering protesters who included a number
of Africans who risk violent death, imprisonment, even execution for the crime
of being queer and out in their home countries. Christian charity runs deep in
a room of a few dozen men rehearsing platitudes. It thins out a fair bit when it comes to the
faceless masses of people the church has marginalized for centuries, fomenting their persecution,
rationalizing hatred against them, failing to offer unqualified support or
solidarity, pandering to the worst and most bigoted elements of some societies--even
as secular society in other countries has pulled way ahead. The victims of that
record of malice and indifference might well call for a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission instead of settling politely for the endlessly
deferred prospect of toleration. Of the various provinces of the Anglican
Communion, only ECUSA has had the courage to move forward, at considerable
cost.
I was talking to friend of mine two days ago, when the news
first broke of the decision, who years ago bailed out of Christianity altogether over the endless prevarication of the Anglican Church of Canada on the
issue. The Canadian Anglican hierarchy has long attempted to frame the rights of sexual minorities not as a matter of justice but of pastoral compassion and mutual forbearance. The rhetoric of that particular evasion has been threadbare for decades. (To be fair to the Canadians, there’ll be a vote at their triennial
General Synod this coming summer, thirteen years after gay marriage became
legal in Canada, on whether to change church law to allow same-sex unions. If
that vote passes, a second vote will be required three years later. One wouldn’t
want to rush things.)
Same-sex access to the deeply problematic institution of
marriage is hardly in and of itself the radical rethinking of sexual ethics
that the Christian tradition desperately needs. Neither is the ordination of
openly queer priests. But not even those basic steps toward equity in the face
of human sexual diversity are within the grasp of a small group of men who
claim apostolic authority over 85 million believers worldwide.
