(2 Mar 2014): Does Media Shape or Sell Gay Rights Narrative?

Welcome to Waffle House: Canterbury Justin Welby's Waffle House

http://www.christianpost.com/news/anglican-leader-upholds-traditional-marriage-after-meeting-with-gay-rights-activist-94250/

Anglican Leader Upholds Traditional Marriage After Meeting With Gay Rights Activist 

• 
  
  
  Bishop of Durham Justin Welby.

By Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post Reporter

April 18, 2013|6:45 pm

The much awaited discussion on homosexuality between the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell on Thursday at Lambeth Palace in England ended with both men still convinced in their principles.

"It was a very constructive, engaging meeting. But also quite frank with a number of disagreements," Tatchell said, according to Pink News. "We agreed same-sex relationships can be of extraordinary quality and great moral character. But the archbishop's stumbling block is he couldn't make the further step of acknowledging that justified marriage equality."

The Australian-born British political campaigner continued: "Quite clearly Justin Welby is struggling with how he reconciles Christ's gospel of love and compassion with the church's current position which is to oppose marriage equality. I think he took on board my point that discrimination is not a Christian value."

Lambeth Palace has stated that it will not be commenting on the discussion between the two men, as it was a private matter, but the Anglican leader is still backing the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman.

"The Church of England holds very firmly, and continues to hold to the view, that marriage is a lifelong union of one man to one woman," Welby has said. "At the same time, at the heart of our understanding of what it is to be human is the essential dignity of the human being."

Thursday's meeting was in response to Tatchell accusing Welby and traditional marriage supporting Christians of homophobia, whether they accept the label or not. News sources noted that Welby agreeing to hear Tatchell out was a notable event, since the previous archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had turned down such offers in the past.
"Parliament has a right to legislate same-sex marriage … the church has a right to oppose it … I am in favor of the state recognizing same-sex relationships but not in favor of redefining marriage," Welby said.

According to Tatchell, the Anglican leader told him that he believes gay relationships are "intrinsically different and therefore should be acknowledged in a different legislative framework from marriage," as reported by The Independent.

Tatchell said he "pressed him" on how the "church over centuries had evolved on many policies and had once supported slavery, colonialism and the denial of votes for women. These were all traditional church teachings but they have all been changed. So why can't this also change?"

The two disagreed on whether redefining marriage would be a positive for society, Pink News noted, with the archbishop of Canterbury advocating for the traditional family unit of one mother and one father.

Welby agreed, however, that the current ban on heterosexual civil unions should end, and couples should be allowed to choose that option if they so desire.

"He indicated very clearly that he supports an amendment before parliament to open up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples which is a new development I haven't heard before."

Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/anglican-leader-upholds-traditional-marriage-after-meeting-with-gay-rights-activist-94250/#vEyFfepxTMryiACT.99

Letter: NY TEC Bishops Authorizes Clerics to Perform LBGT-Marriages

http://www.anglicanink.com/article/new-york-bishops-authorize-clergy-perform-gay-weddings

New York bishops authorize clergy to perform gay weddings

Bishops allow clergy to solemnize gay marriages

Article | July 20, 2012 - 5:32pm | By George Conger

New York Bishop Mark S. Sisk on 19 July 2012 sent a letter via email to the clergy of the Diocese giving permission for them to officiate at same-sex marriages both in a religious capacity and as agents of New York State, commencing September 1, 2012. He wrote the letter, which contains a complete explanation of his reasons for making the change in policy, after consultation with, and with the full support of Bishop Coadjutor Andrew M. L. Dietsche and Assistant Bishop Andrew D. Smith.
Change in Policy Regarding Same-Sex Marriages

Midwest Conservative Journal: Sound-off Against TEC GC's 2012

The TEC thinks they should be central, vocal and visible.  Well, they are.  Institutionally, they are run by "egopapists." Or, blind narcissists, self-evidentely. Or, meglomaniacs without reasons.  Or, "Gasbags" for cause and with merit. This is TEC's theological and cultural legacy.  MCJ offers a reasonable screed here, one of justifiable frustration.  We recommend following MWJ and linking to it.

http://themcj.com/?p=33537

BACK TO THE BIBLE

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

Ross Douthat of the New York Times looks at the precipitous decline of the Episcopal Organization and other manifestations of liberal Christianity and wonders whether liberal Christianity can be saved. Although regular visitors here know that the argument about when the Episcopal Organization began to go south is a perpetual one, Douthat begins with a certain megalomaniacal old gasbag:

In 1998, John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark, published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure — during his career, he dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition — but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church has spent the last several decades changing and then changing some more, from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States.

I think you can make a plausible case for the Episcopal death spiral, while perhaps not starting with the megalomaniacal old gasbag, at least becoming inevitable with him. Over the years, a number of Catholic and Orthodox commenters here have quite correctly pointed out that any church that did nothing whatsoever about the megalogmaniacal old gas bag has no business protesting Gene Robinson.

After all, Robbie, as homosexual as he might be, is still a paragon of Christian and evangelical virtue compared to the megalomaniacal old gasbag. The Episcopaltanic may have struck the iceberg long before anyone ever heard of the megalomaniacal old gasbag. But the water didn’t start pouring into the ship until TEO refused to do anything about him other than hope that he went away.

As a result, today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.

Another point that I’ve been making for many years. The Episcopal Organization gets the publicity that it does not because of anything it has to offer. The media plays up the Episcopalians because Episcopalians look Roman Catholic, what with their pointy hats and hooked sticks and Latin terms in their prayer book and saints and whatnot.

Those stories about the Episcopal Organization really have nothing to do with the Episcopal Organization. They’re a backhanded way for the leftist American news media to tell Rome, a church that actually still matters, “Do you see how respectfully we’d cover you if you’d back off the abortion talk, ordain women and gays and generally agree with us? And it would benefit you; these days, the Episcopalians are thriving!!”

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.

Not that conservative Christianity in any form has done much better.

Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message.

But the left has done WAY worse.

But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic Church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves.

And it does you absolutely no good to pretend that you’re perfectly fine when all the evidence says that you’re grievously ill.

Liberal commentators, meanwhile, consistently hail these forms of Christianity as a model for the future without reckoning with their decline. Few of the outraged critiques of the Vatican’s investigation of progressive nuns mentioned the fact that Rome had intervened because otherwise the orders in question were likely to disappear in a generation. Fewer still noted the consequences of this eclipse: Because progressive Catholicism has failed to inspire a new generation of sisters, Catholic hospitals across the country are passing into the hands of more bottom-line-focused administrators, with inevitable consequences for how they serve the poor.

Then Douthat makes a point that is far more profound than I think he realizes.

But if liberals need to come to terms with these failures, religious conservatives should not be smug about them. The defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life. No one should wish for its extinction, or for a world where Christianity becomes the exclusive property of the political right.

In the 1800′s, anti-slavery was considered a “liberal” cause probably because you could find no end of conservative theologians, particularly in the southern United States, who lamely attempted to provide a biblical basis for chattel slavery.

It’s significant that one of the most savagely anti-slavery voices among the Christian clergy in that century was the great British Baptist Charles Spurgeon, a man who was, as far as I’m concerned, the single greatest preacher of the Gospel in the English language up to and including Billy Graham, the man from whom I learned who Jesus was in 1969.

Did Spurgeon eventually turn into some kind of Christian proto-leftist? Hardly. Here’s a little something on what was called the Down-Grade Controversy. Long story short, Spurgeon cut ties with British Baptists because he felt they were becoming too liberal.

And that’s basically what Douthat hopes happens. That liberal Christians remember that they are, or at least call themselves, Christians.

What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence. As the liberal Protestant scholar Gary Dorrien has pointed out, the Christianity that animated causes such as the Social Gospel and the civil rights movement was much more dogmatic than present-day liberal faith. Its leaders had a “deep grounding in Bible study, family devotions, personal prayer and worship.” They argued for progressive reform in the context of “a personal transcendent God … the divinity of Christ, the need of personal redemption and the importance of Christian missions.”

Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that per haps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.

Otherwise…what’s the damned point?

Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.

In one respect, atheists are right. You don’t need religion in order to do “good.” Or if you want yourself “spiritual,” you certainly don’t need the Christian religion to do good. Jews certainly do much good while one of the pillars of Islam is charity. Indeed, it’s probably impossible to find any religion anywhere that does not have the care of the less fortunate as one of its foundations.
Or if you want to “do good” and “spirituality” doesn’t matter to you, you can always join the Optimists, the Rotary Club, the Freemasons or any other service club that happens to strike your fancy.

So can liberal Christianity reconnect with its religious basis? Rediscover its Christianity, if you like? Theoretically it could, as the example of Charles Spurgeon mentioned above. The question is whether or not it wants to.

At Stand Firm, Tim Fountain put together a list of other resolutions recently passed at the Episcopal Organization’s recent General Convention. Notice anything peculiar about them? The ones that passed all skew to the left, backing this or that secular leftist cause. Many of the ones that didn’t were more centrist or provided possible cost-effective alternatives to actions TEO was already determined to take, particularly in the area of health care.

And do any of you remember this?

Resolved, That the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further

Resolved, That this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

That was Resolution B033. Frank Griswold pushed that through at the 2006 General Convention. It’s since been thrown into the garbage can of Episcopal history but what I recall the most about it was the absolute outrage it engendered among the Episcopal left.

If I remember correctly, people like Liz Kaeton burst into tears at its passage. Something like twenty bishops immediately issued a statement saying that B033 was dead-on-arrival in their dioceses and you couldn’t read a leftist Anglican blog that wasn’t either blazing mad or rhetorically sobbing on its fainting couch.

And over what? A resolution that was never going to be observed by liberal bishops anyway? Resolution B033, the bravest example of actual leadership in the Episcopal Organization that I’ve ever seen(whether Frank knew what he was doing or not), represents what the Episcopal Organization and other mainline Protestant churches must do in order for the rest of us to take them spiritually seriously again.

Here’s a thought experiment for you. What if the Episcopal Organization consecrated Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool, “blessed” same-sex relationships but completely reversed itself on abortion, deciding in convention that the Catholics had it right and that abortion was a great(but forgivable) eviI?

Not only did the Episcopalians now consider abortion to be a great(but forgivable) evil, but any Episcopalian who disagreed with this teaching was unworthy of Episcopal ordination on any level and that any already-ordained Episcopalian who publicly disagreed with the church’s stance was liable to be deposed.

Yeah, I know, you write great science fiction, Johnson. But if the Episcopal Organization had had the reputation of being fiercely anti-abortion in 2003 but consecrated Gene Robinson to its episcopate anyway, would you still have left? To be honest with you, if that had been the case, I would probably still be an Episcopalian.

Because I would understand that while I had been baptized into a liberal Christian church, many of whose stances I know longer agreed with, I would also know that my church knows how to do something actual liberal Christianity has forgotten, or no longer cares to know, how to do. Say no to the secular left.

Otherwise, I’m going to come to the conclusion that I came to in 2003. My “church” is nothing more than a purely secular and entirely political body that utilizes Christian terminology and rites in order to slap a thin coat of “spiritual” varnish over whatever purely secular and entirely political cause is current this week.

By the way, Douthat’s column seems to have struck a nerve. Click here. But if you read nothing else today, make SURE that you click here where the prevailing attitude among Jim’s commentariat seems to be, “The megalomaniacal old gasbag? Never heard of him.”

Vetting Theological Elites: NC TEC Bishops and Homoerotic Marriages

Vetting the Theological Elites, e.g Bishops?

          NC Bishops and clerics?  And their backgrounds are?  General Seminary in NYC?  VTS in Alexandria?  And their training in ancient languages, systematics, ecclesiastical history, Reformation Catechisms and Confessions, or the Biblical liturgy of 1662?  Afraid to ask the questions, fellow American Anglicans?  We're not and we're beginning to insist upon transparency and inquiry!

          Frankly, given my experience, TEC Bishops are poseurs and theological imposters! Genteel?  Indeed.  Polite?  That too.  Greasy politicians?   Indeed, charming.  Bedecked in robes?  Always.   But scholarly?  Well, perhaps.  Perhaps, but we have some questions. Actually, we aren’t sure they--the Bishops--are much better educated than Paul Crouch, Sr., at TBN, along with the half-wits featured there. They would like to think otherwise, but vetting demands more.

          Educated, well there--right there--we have a very big issue with these TEC Bishops in NC.  Vetting and the 9^th commandment are on view.  Rigor of evaluation will not be welcomed by them, but we must insist on it.  Will this scribe be enjoyed?  Well, they'd try to stuff me, but then, they don't own me, my pension, my finances, or my future either.  That's dangerous for them.

          Thus far, we have not been highly impressed with the schismatic Bishops, educationally speaking, in the new Anglican groups of ACNA and AMiA.  Duncan? Murphy? They lack substance.  That vetting-process is underway too.

          Thankfully, the Bishop of eastern NC, the Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniels, doesn’t report in too often to the local congregation.  We love his absence.  In fact, that's a commendable prayer.  “Eternal LORD, spare us privy conspiracy, false doctrine and contempt of Thy Word,” said to include, but not limited to: IGNORANT BISHOPS.   

          May they continue to make themselves rare, as their “rarity” is justified and much desired.  We love their absence.

          Here’s the ever-voluble Virtue’s analysis at: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15983

People of North Carolina Victims of Ugly Elitism from Gay Episcopal Leaders

 
Pro-Gay Episcopal Bishops come out in support of Obama's stance on gay marriage

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
May 14, 2012

The State of North Carolina dealt a fatal blow this week to same sex marriage and civil unions with the passage of Amendment One, arguing that marriage shall remain exclusively between a man and a woman. The media says they're all "bigots". Apparently, they were driven by a typically Southern hatefulness. Supporting gay marriage has become a kind of cultural signifier, a way of distinguishing oneself from the ignorant throng.

In the intensively divided America of 2012, being against gay marriage can now be seen almost as an act of political rebellion against a faraway elite which fears and loathes anyone who is not like them.

The Episcopal Church's leading lesbian (the Rev.) Susan Russell called the vote a "shameful exercise of ballot-box bigotry in North Carolina." She looked with disgust upon the people of North Carolina for voting in favor of Amendment 1 by an overwhelming 61 per cent. The amendment to the state's constitution says, "Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state."

Her racist remarks, equating being gay with being black, are highlighted by the fact that most blacks in the state supported the Amendment. So much for conflating "homophobia" with racism. Of course, gays and lesbians will stop at nothing to import their behavior into the church. They don't mind who they trample on to get their way. Anyone who opposes their behavior is, of course, homophobic and should be consigned to their version of hell - presumably, with no partner at all. Anyone who opposes their agenda is automatically a bigot and full of hatred and subject to much ridicule.

Take the case of Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church who called effeminate behavior "ungodly". Russell would have none of it. She accused him of being "the bully in the Bully Pulpit." She said he was advocating child abuse when all he was doing was trying to give an illustration, very poorly it seems, of a father with a son showing effeminate tendencies and urging him to nip it in the bud. Russell accused him of turning religion into a weapon of mass destruction aimed at LGBT people.

The Episcopal organization Integrity USA joined Equality North Carolina in describing the amendment to gay marriage in the state as discrimination in its highest form.

Following the vote, the Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, said he opposed Amendment One because he believes all people are created in the image and likeness of God and that all are, therefore, to be accorded the rights and dignity that befit a child of God. Why people with same sex attractions should be given special treatment he did not say bearing in mind that for 2,000 years such "attractions" were viewed as soul destroying and kingdom denying.

"My concern for the hurt and harm that this amendment may cause remains," said the bishop. "That includes hurt and harm to unmarried victims of domestic violence, unmarried couples - gay or straight, senior couples and children."

The bishop did not say why domestic violence should suddenly rise because single people or those with same-sex attractions cannot marry must remain a mystery. VOL explored this position here http://tinyurl.com/c25cvtr

At least 24 Episcopal priests in the Diocese of North Carolina signed a letter opposing the anti-gay-marriage amendment.

EPISCOPAL BISHOPS & GAY LEADERS RESPOND

Not surprisingly, a slew of bishops, gay clergy and laity emerged from the Episcopal woodpile to express their support for President Obama's new found "evolutionary" stand on gay marriage.

"The President's change of heart will come as no surprise to Integrity members who have seen miracles of transformation as those close to us and in the wider Church have had their hearts and minds touched by the Holy spirit working through LGBT people and our allies," noted The Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall, Integrity President.

Interim Integrity Executive Director, Rev. Harry Knox opined that the leader of the free world has finally endorsed what Louie Crew and Ernest Clay began to model on behalf of gay and lesbian Episcopalians when Integrity was formed in 1974. "Beloveds, we LGBT folk and our allies taught him (Obama) to do that. Our struggle is not over, but today is a very good day".

Integrity Vice President, the Rev. Jon M. Richardson said he was grateful to President Obama for his vocal support of marriage equality. "This growth and forward movement in his thinking is particularly heartening after the unsurprising, but disappointing vote yesterday for continued discrimination in North Carolina. Integrity remains committed to realizing full marriage equality both in our church and in the wider society, and we are happy to welcome the President's support. While some churches and local governments are holding fast to socially irrelevant and outdated political positions, we are proud to lift up the Episcopal Church as a growing beacon of hope for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people of faith and our allies."

Washington Bishop Mariann Budde, commenting on President Obama's "evolution" on marriage equality, stated, "I want to thank President Barack Obama for his forthright description of how he came to change his mind on the issue of marriage equality. While some commentators are dismissing the President's "evolution," the fact is that many of us have a similar story to tell. We grew up in social and spiritual traditions that taught us that same-gender orientation was a perversion, was a sin. Yet over time, and in relationship with people whose lives and examples contradicted our assumptions, we came to a different conclusion. Eventually, we came to realize that the sacred traditions we thought were opposed to same-gender relationships had much to say in support of them.

She indicated she will "allow and encourage" clergy to officiate at civil marriage ceremonies. Not surprisingly, the three bishops of the Diocese of Los Angeles, The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, The Rt. Rev. Diane Jardine Bruce and the Rt. Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool came out saying "they fully endorsed marriage equality and welcomed the growing public understanding and appreciation of same-sex couples living as faithful families worldwide. We particularly applaud the statement made by President Obama earlier today and will continue to pray and work for the respect of every human being with dignity, justice and peace for all."

Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, says he is grateful and proud that Obama is supporting gay marriage. Robinson said that the president is aligning himself on the right side of history. He was thrilled that Obama mentioned children with gay parents who attend school with his daughters who are not treated equally.

One bishop who tentatively raised his head over the gay ramparts in mild opposition to the ascendant gay Episcopal mob was Springfield Bishop Daniel H. Martins who observed, "I feel constrained to not let it go unsaid that what is called "marriage equality" by those who advocate for it is not merely the extension of the rights widely understood to be associated with a familiar societal institution to a segment of the population that, until now, has been unjustly denied those rights, but, rather, a thorough redefinition of the institution itself."

He concluded with, "For the record, I support civil partnership laws, and access to inheritance, power-of-attorney, hospital visitation, etc. etc. for those in same-sex relationships. But surely there must be some way to guarantee these rights without redefining 'marriage' beyond plausible recognition."

New York episcopal Bishops Mark Sisk, Andrew M.L. Dietsche and Andrew Smith each expressed support for marriage equality. "I welcome President Obama's expression of support for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people. Given that equality before the law is a fundamental principle of our republic, it seems to me that our President has reached an eminently appropriate conclusion," wrote Sisk.

"In earlier statements I have made known my support of marriage for gay and lesbian people. I am convinced that this support is entirely in keeping with the familiar call to respect the dignity of every human being. It is, moreover, in accord with our Lord's promise that we are all, fully and equally, beloved children of God." NY Bishop-elect Dietsche commended President Obama for his public statement supporting the legality of marriage for gay and lesbian couples. "There is a clear and growing majority in America which believes that marriage equality is fair and just, and that it is a moral imperative for a country founded on principles of the equality of all people. We in New York can justly take pride that our state has been a pioneer in providing this equality under the law, and in the Diocese of New York we rejoice with all those who have found, in these new freedoms, the public validation of loving relationships that in many cases represent decades of shared joys and sacrifices.

"At our General Convention this summer our own church will consider new liturgies for the blessing of same sex relationships. Happily, in New York, such blessings have long been part of our common life. We pray for the Episcopal Church as it gathers in Convention that it will hear the courageous declaration of our president, the convictions of our own bishop, and the witness of those who have already found comfort, joy and solace in our marriage equality laws, as we work together toward true equality for all people in a church which follows our Lord Jesus. It was he who taught us that in every person we may find the face of our God, and that in every marriage we may hope to see "a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world."

Bishop Smith has heartily endorsed the initiative and action of President Obama in affirming the appropriateness of marriage between persons of the same sex.

Bishop Scott B. Hayashi of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah commented, "When I heard the news I was very happy with it. I applaud President Obama for being very brave to make such a statement. We welcome all people. If the person is gay or lesbian, we welcome them among us. If a person does not believe in gay or lesbian marriage, they are welcome among us."

The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, Episcopal Bishop of Olympia, addressed the human factor in reacting to Obama's support. "As I reflect on the many I know who have been examples of devout and committed love for one another and for their families," said Rickel, "I am most grateful for his willingness to share his convictions."

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina observed that Obama's embrace of same-sex marriage isn't likely to alter the ongoing theological and social debate in his church, a debate that has roiled the church over the past 30 years.

"I don't think it is going to add anything significant to the discussion," said Bishop W. Andrew Waldo. "I think we are already so deep in this conversation that it is not going to affect us."

America's cultural elite as expressed in the sophisticated realm of Episcopal Church leaders has spoken. With little opposition, they are united for the world's pansexual agenda, ignoring Scriptural commands opposing sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

At yet another level, gay marriage has become a tool through which the right-minded sections of society and certain church leaders express their moral superiority over the dumb, the brainwashed, the insufficiently cosmopolitan, and the churchgoing. People like Susan Russell live in a permanent state of high anxiety at any opposition to the Episcopal Church's new found sexual zeitgeist and use Gay marriage as a weapon to demonstrate that they are better - that is, less brainwashed and more caring - than your average redneck or country hick.

As one British newspaperman wrote, "Supporting gay marriage has become a kind of cultural signifier, a way of distinguishing oneself from the ignorant throng."

THE THEOLOGY OF BARACK OBAMA

"When [Michelle and I] think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it's also the Golden Rule and treating others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that's what we try to impart to our kids, and that's what motivates me as President, and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I'll be as a as a dad and a husband, and hopefully the better I'll be as president."

The use of the Golden Rule to uphold gay marriage does not hold up.

An article in the Harvard Review by three scholars said that as a moral reality, marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction. They further argued that there are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners.

"Besides making this positive argument for our position and raising several objections to the view that same-sex unions should be recognized, we address what we consider the strongest philosophical objections to our view of the nature of marriage, as well as more pragmatic concerns about the point or consequences of implementing it as a policy," the article concluded.

One of the reasons the Anglican Church in North America came into being was due to TEC's opposition of the plain reading and teaching of Scripture that all sexual behavior be restricted to one man and one woman in marriage. That has not changed in 2,000 or 6,000 years.

It is also why the vast majority of the Global South Anglican provinces have united against pansexual Western Anglicans. They will have no truck with the enlightened "revelations" of sexual immorality to which they object. They are growing churches with a clear understanding of the gospel, while the West slowly dies without one.

Russell says she takes her cues from Jesus. "Jesus never said a single word about anything even remotely connected to homosexuality," she says.

True, he didn't, and he didn't have to. It was enough that he said that God made them male and female and closed the sexual matrix forever. The once married with children Russell says, if Jesus were here today, he would celebrate committed, same-sex relationships. Nonsense. At no point would Jesus affirm present day experience over His authority. Jesus repeatedly affirmed the law of the Old Testament and said he fulfilled it himself. What he demanded of his disciples was obedience, an obedience that might lead even to a cross. We sacrifice our desires, not uphold them. Ms. Russell's "gospel" and her views on sexuality are a mockery of the gospel and will ultimately destroy the Episcopal Church.

END