Tuesday, October 24, 2006
October 23, 2006
Connecticut Episcopal Bishop Authorizes Priests to Bless Gay Unions
By FERNANDA SANTOS
The leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, Bishop Andrew D. Smith, has authorized priests to give blessings to same-sex unions during religious ceremonies. The move threatens to further alienate the conservative wing of his church and deepen a fissure between progressive and orthodox Episcopalians nationwide.
“I believe in my heart and soul that it is time for this church, this diocese, formally to acknowledge and support and bless our sisters and brothers who are gay and lesbian, including those who are living in faithful and faith-filled committed partnerships,” Bishop Smith said on Saturday in a speech at a diocesan conference in Hartford.
The decision, reported yesterday by The Hartford Courant, does not authorize Episcopal clergy to officiate at civil unions or create an official prayer service for the blessings. Rather, it permits parishes to acknowledge gay and lesbian couples who have had a civil union granted by the state. Connecticut approved civil unions last year.
The decision allows each parish to choose whether to acknowledge same-sex couples during religious services, said Karin Hamilton, spokeswoman for the diocese.
Nationwide, nine other Episcopal dioceses — in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Long Island, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont and Washington, D.C. — have enacted policies allowing the blessing of same-sex couples, according to Integrity, a national Episcopal gay organization based in Rochester. Kansas used to have the same policy, but it was rescinded there in 2003, when the diocese ordained a new bishop, Dean E. Wolfe.
“What happened in Connecticut is great news for the church, because what it says is that we’re going to continue to move forward to fully include all of the baptized in the body of Christ, whether they’re gay or straight,” said the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity and an Episcopal priest in Los Angeles. “We should be in the business of building bridges, not walls.”
But the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, an orthodox umbrella group, said that Bishop Smith’s decision “is proof of his disregard for the larger Anglican Communion and further evidences his militancy with the homosexual gay agenda.”
“Bishop Smith and some other bishops as well are literally choosing to pull themselves and their churches out of the broader religious community,” Canon Anderson continued. “In the future of the Anglican community, there might be no place for people like Bishop Smith.”
With about two million members in the United States, the Episcopal Church has taken significant steps toward inclusiveness in the past few years, most notably with the election of V. Gene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the history of the denomination.
The same year, clergy and laymen overwhelmingly approved a resolution that recognized the blessing of same-sex unions as a prerogative of individual parishes.
The moves strained relations between congregations in the United States and those in the global, more traditional, Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm.
A 2004 report commissioned by the communion’s leader, the archbishop of Canterbury, recommended that the Episcopal Church apologize for the ordination of Bishop Robinson and stop blessing same-sex couples and electing gay bishops.
The Episcopal Church responded at its triennial conference this year, calling on dioceses to avoid backing the election of openly gay bishops.
But in Connecticut, Bishop Smith has continued to push forward his changes, as he has done since becoming the diocesan bishop seven years ago.
In 1999, he changed a longstanding policy to allow the ordination of gay clergy members. In 2000, he and other religious leaders voted to extend health benefits to the same-sex partners of diocesan employees.
“I believe that it is time for us to rethink, repray and reform our theology and our pastoral practices; to welcome, recognize, support and bless the lives and faith of brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian in the equal fullness of Christian fellowship,” Bishop Smith said in his speech, which drew effusive cheers.
The Rev. Christopher Leighton one of six priests who rebelled against Bishop Smith over his support of Bishop Robinson, said yesterday that Bishop Smith’s position on the blessing of same-sex unions only complicated matters.
“He had a very fiery speech, interrupted by applause at several points and in the end, he got a standing ovation,” said Father Leighton, of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien. “This is where the vast majority of the diocese stands on this matter; the problem is that the worldwide Anglican community will have no part in this.”
Father Leighon added, “It’s not that we’re against gays. It’s rather that we’re affirming the traditional beliefs that only a man and a woman should be intimate for life in holy wedlock.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Christians in politics, a manifesto
By Very Reverend Thomas Hopko - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Op-EdMonday, October 23, 2006 - Web Link
October 22, 2006
Some of us Christians (or would-be Christians) don't necessarily want our leaders to be "observant Christians." We know ourselves too well for that.
We also don't want our country to consider itself a "Christian nation" because we also know what that can mean.
Because politics is the "art of the possible," we want leaders who work to achieve maximum results for the common good, as they understand the common good, with the recognition that others can legitimately see things differently than they do. And we want leaders who know that there is no perfect and lasting good in this world, and never dare to promise such a thing to anyone.
We want leaders who listen, tell the truth and learn from their mistakes.
We want leaders who resist reinventing themselves every few weeks to please and appease one or another voting bloc. We want men and women who do not demonize their critics and opponents while alleging to respect them deeply.
We want leaders who can compromise their convictions within acceptable limits without betraying their consciences in order to achieve the best for the most, as they understand the best to be.
We want people capable of changing their minds and admitting their errors.
And we want leaders who don't seek "all or nothing" in ideological battles that no one can win and that produce countless casualties who, as in all wars, are always mostly from the weakest and poorest among us.
This would mean, for example, that when some Americans argue that the invasion of Iraq was an egregious analytical, tactical, political and military error, those who disagree would not label them weak-willed cowards who are betraying the brave men and women in the armed forces and offering to surrender our nation and the entire world to evil powers.
Or, when some Americans oppose abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage, their opponents on these issues would not accuse them of being heartless, cruel monsters who oppose modern science and technology, abhor women and minorities and want people to suffer uselessly as they glorify human agony at the sufferer's expense.
Or, when some Americans think that illegal immigrants should be treated kindly, especially for their children's sake, and that ways should be found to integrate them productively into society, their opponents would not call them anarchists who oppose law and order and treat American working people with contempt; just as when others say that they want to keep as many jobs as possible in America, with just wages for American workers, their opponents would not accuse them of being enemies of economic freedom, entrepreneurial initiative, international development and the capitalistic system that made our nation great.
Some of us Christians also want political leaders with the courage to conduct an all-out war on global and domestic violence, terror, crime, injustice and neglect of the neediest by sacrificial spiritual, economic and philanthropic actions that begin with the nation's strongest and richest citizens.
We want people who would resort to carefully planned and responsibly executed military operations to contain evil only when absolutely necessary, as the very last possible option. We also want all Americans to sacrifice and suffer equally for peace, justice, freedom and well-being for all Americans and all of the earth's peoples. And we want our leaders, who are inevitably among the country's freest, strongest and wealthiest men and women, to be the leading exemplars of such self-limiting sacrifice, which would, for the most part, cause them little personal suffering while only costing them dollars they do not really need for personal or familial well-being.
We want leaders who are not prisoners of power, profit, possession, property, position, privilege, prestige and pleasure. We want people who demand from others what they demand first from themselves, and who do for others what they would want others to do for them and their loved ones.
Some of us Christians are convinced that the first step in securing the best possible political leadership for America is a radical change in the way we elect our leaders. We wish for an immediate end to the agonizingly extended, disgracefully expensive and endlessly analyzed campaigns that exhaust people's patience and sanity, and lead them into all kinds of temptations that they could easily and happily do without.
And of supreme importance, we want a nation governed by women and men whose actions prove their genuine care and respect (not to use the "l" word) for everyone without exception, including America's most violent enemies whose children will be America's even more violent enemies if things don't radically change in our country, both among ourselves at home, and in our dealings with other peoples and nations.
If such political leaders would emerge in America, their religious convictions, or lack of convictions, wouldn't matter in the least to some of us Christians. Such leaders would, in fact, be an answer to our prayers.
We would be their strongest, most faithful and most grateful supporters even when we disagreed with some of their policies and actions. We also realize, however, as an old Russian saying puts it, that we get the leaders, both religious and political, that we deserve.
By Very Reverend Thomas Hopko - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Op-EdMonday, October 23, 2006 - Web Link
October 22, 2006
Some of us Christians (or would-be Christians) don't necessarily want our leaders to be "observant Christians." We know ourselves too well for that.
We also don't want our country to consider itself a "Christian nation" because we also know what that can mean.
Because politics is the "art of the possible," we want leaders who work to achieve maximum results for the common good, as they understand the common good, with the recognition that others can legitimately see things differently than they do. And we want leaders who know that there is no perfect and lasting good in this world, and never dare to promise such a thing to anyone.
We want leaders who listen, tell the truth and learn from their mistakes.
We want leaders who resist reinventing themselves every few weeks to please and appease one or another voting bloc. We want men and women who do not demonize their critics and opponents while alleging to respect them deeply.
We want leaders who can compromise their convictions within acceptable limits without betraying their consciences in order to achieve the best for the most, as they understand the best to be.
We want people capable of changing their minds and admitting their errors.
And we want leaders who don't seek "all or nothing" in ideological battles that no one can win and that produce countless casualties who, as in all wars, are always mostly from the weakest and poorest among us.
This would mean, for example, that when some Americans argue that the invasion of Iraq was an egregious analytical, tactical, political and military error, those who disagree would not label them weak-willed cowards who are betraying the brave men and women in the armed forces and offering to surrender our nation and the entire world to evil powers.
Or, when some Americans oppose abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage, their opponents on these issues would not accuse them of being heartless, cruel monsters who oppose modern science and technology, abhor women and minorities and want people to suffer uselessly as they glorify human agony at the sufferer's expense.
Or, when some Americans think that illegal immigrants should be treated kindly, especially for their children's sake, and that ways should be found to integrate them productively into society, their opponents would not call them anarchists who oppose law and order and treat American working people with contempt; just as when others say that they want to keep as many jobs as possible in America, with just wages for American workers, their opponents would not accuse them of being enemies of economic freedom, entrepreneurial initiative, international development and the capitalistic system that made our nation great.
Some of us Christians also want political leaders with the courage to conduct an all-out war on global and domestic violence, terror, crime, injustice and neglect of the neediest by sacrificial spiritual, economic and philanthropic actions that begin with the nation's strongest and richest citizens.
We want people who would resort to carefully planned and responsibly executed military operations to contain evil only when absolutely necessary, as the very last possible option. We also want all Americans to sacrifice and suffer equally for peace, justice, freedom and well-being for all Americans and all of the earth's peoples. And we want our leaders, who are inevitably among the country's freest, strongest and wealthiest men and women, to be the leading exemplars of such self-limiting sacrifice, which would, for the most part, cause them little personal suffering while only costing them dollars they do not really need for personal or familial well-being.
We want leaders who are not prisoners of power, profit, possession, property, position, privilege, prestige and pleasure. We want people who demand from others what they demand first from themselves, and who do for others what they would want others to do for them and their loved ones.
Some of us Christians are convinced that the first step in securing the best possible political leadership for America is a radical change in the way we elect our leaders. We wish for an immediate end to the agonizingly extended, disgracefully expensive and endlessly analyzed campaigns that exhaust people's patience and sanity, and lead them into all kinds of temptations that they could easily and happily do without.
And of supreme importance, we want a nation governed by women and men whose actions prove their genuine care and respect (not to use the "l" word) for everyone without exception, including America's most violent enemies whose children will be America's even more violent enemies if things don't radically change in our country, both among ourselves at home, and in our dealings with other peoples and nations.
If such political leaders would emerge in America, their religious convictions, or lack of convictions, wouldn't matter in the least to some of us Christians. Such leaders would, in fact, be an answer to our prayers.
We would be their strongest, most faithful and most grateful supporters even when we disagreed with some of their policies and actions. We also realize, however, as an old Russian saying puts it, that we get the leaders, both religious and political, that we deserve.
NYC Transit Implements New Transgender Rules by 365Gay.com
(New York City) The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has reached agreement with a transgender advocacy group and will implement new regulations allowing people to use MTA public restrooms consistent with their gender expression.
The agreement ends a complaint filed with the New York City Commission on Human Rights involving a 70 year old transsexual who was arrested three times by transit police for using the women's restroom at Grand Central Terminal.
Helena Stone, 70, said an officer called her "a freak, a weirdo and the ugliest woman in the world" and warned her, "If I ever see you in the women's bathroom, I'm going to arrest you."
Stone has worked for Verizon and its predecessor for 37 years and has been in transition from male to female for about 10 years.
In August of last year she was assigned to repair the pay phones at Grand Central, where, she said, harassment by MTA officers "started slowly and began to mount."
She was arrested on disorderly conduct charges on Sept. 29, on Dec. 17 and on Jan. 12. The arrests occurred as she tried to use the women's restrooms at the station, she said, and since then she has been forced to use a cup in her office, which has no bathroom.
The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund filed a discrimination complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and in March held a rally in support of Stone. (story)
Following the rally the charges against Stone were dropped but the discrimination complaint continued, seeking, among other things, an injunction barring the MTA from continuing to violate provisions of the New York City Human Rights Law that protect transgender people from discrimination.
As part of the agreement announced Monday the MTA agrees to adopt a policy allowing people to use MTA public restrooms consistent with their gender expression; implement a transgender sensitivity training program for MTA employees; and pay $2,000 in damages to Stone.
“Today's settlement marks a milestone in the transgender community's struggle to be free from discrimination and harassment,” said Michael Silverman, TLDEF's Executive Director and General Counsel.
“I only wanted to go to work and live my life as who I am,” said Stone.
Transgender people routinely face harassment, including arrest, when attempting to use restrooms and other sex- segregated facilities, said Silverman.
The New York City Human Rights Law protects transgender people from harassment and discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, including restrooms.
©365Gay.com 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)