Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
INTEGRITY CELEBRATES THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S SECOND OPENLY GAY BISHOP AND PROCLAIMS THERE IS NO TURNING BACK ON FULL INCLUSION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Integrity joins with the Diocese of Los Angeles in celebrating today's announcement that sufficient consents have been received from both Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to the election of the Reverend Canon Mary Glasspool as a bishop suffragan. We look forward to the May 15th ordination service where Canons Bruce and Glasspool will become the 16th and 17th women bishops in the history of the Episcopal Church and to the work and witness they will offer on behalf of the gospel, not only for the Diocese of Los Angeles but for the whole church.
"Integrity
continues in its commitment to turn the resolutions of General Convention into
realities on the ground for Episcopalians in every diocese," said the
Reverend David Norgard, Integrity President. "Today's affirmation of the
election of a superbly qualified candidate as a bishop in the Episcopal Church
is good news not just for those who work for the fuller inclusion of the LGBT
baptized, but for the whole church."
"Today the
Episcopal Church said 'Amen' to what the Holy Spirit did in Los Angeles
"Integrity
is part of a nationwide campaign called 'Believe Out Loud'--resourcing
congregations to explicitly welcome LGBT people into their work and
witness" said Louise Brooks, Integrity's Communication Director and a
resident of the Diocese of Los Angeles.
"We are proud to be partners with those across this church and
across the country committed to working on both national and local levels
for full inclusion. And we believe the election of Mary Glasspool
will be an inspiration, not just to those working in our churches, but to those
standing outside of them wondering if they are truly welcome. The answer is,
"Yes--come and see!"
"As openly
gay and lesbian people become a common and unremarkable aspect of the cultural
landscape," said Norgard, "more and more bishops will ordain LGBT
persons, more vestries will elect them to serve as rectors, more congregations
will elect them to vestries, and most importantly, altar guilds will be setting
up weddings for two grooms or two brides. We are past the turning point and the
forecast for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church is brighter than ever
before."
The ordination
service for the new bishops suffragan will be held on Saturday, May 15, 2010
beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach CA
Louise Brooks
Director of
Communications, Integrity
tvprod@earthlink.net
626-993-4605
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
HOUSE OF BISHOPS MEETING TO DISCUSS SAME GENDER RELATIONSHIPS
By Pat McCaughan
A discussion of same-gender relationships will be on the agenda when more than 115 bishops of the Episcopal Church gather March 19-24 for their spring retreat meeting in Camp Allen, Texas.
Bishop Henry Parsley of the Diocese of Alabama, who chairs the House of Bishops' Theology Committee, said two major papers will be
presented from the study "Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church."
"One paper represents the church's traditional view and the other a
proposal to revise the tradition, and there's a response to each
paper," Parsley said in a March 16 telephone interview from his
Birmingham office.
"We'll have a discussion of the paper and see what questions it raises and what we can learn from each other and how this kind of theological dialogue can be advanced," Parsley said. "The purpose was to prepare theological papers by academic theologians so they focus on the classical theological approach to the question."
The study was commissioned in 2008 and authored by a diverse group of theologians to represent a wide range of views. Included in that group are:
• Dr. John Goldingay, the David Allan Hubbard professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California;
• Dr. Deirdre Good, professor of New Testament at the General Theological Seminary in New York;
• Dr. Willis Jenkins, Margaret A. Farley assistant professor of social ethics, Yale Divinity School;
• The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Kittredge, Ernest J. Villavaso Jr. chair of New Testament and dean of community life at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin;
• The Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand, academic dean and associate professor of biblical studies at McGill University in Toronto;
• Dr. Eugene Rogers, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro;
• The Rev. Dr. George Sumner, principal and Helliwell professor of world mission, Wycliffe College, Toronto; and
• The Rev. Dr. Daniel Westberg, research professor of ethics and moral theology, Nashotah House, Nashotah, Wisconsin.
Parsley said that Dr. Ellen Charry, associate professor of systematic and historical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and editor of Theology Today, served as editor.
Read the rest of the story here:
DAVID NORGARD'S VTS ADDRESS: THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION
ATTENTION SEMINARY STUDENTS, INTEGRITY MEMBERS, FRIENDS & ALLIES: Every now and then something comes along that you don't want to miss:
On March 4, 2010, the Rev. David Norgard was invited to address the students and faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary. Norgard is the President of Integrity USA. His topic was "THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION." Integrity USA has been an advocate for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church for 35 years. Norgard's historic address focuses on how far we have come and where Integrity and the Episcopal Church are heading. This address was published in two parts. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that nothing short of full inclusion is good enough for Jesus or for the church.
Read PART ONE here.
Read PART TWO here.
Open up the conversation about the future of inclusion at your school. If you are a faculty member, administrator, student, or alum of any one of the Episcopal seminaries, Integrity President David Norgard is available to speak at your school. To inquire about this possibility, please contact him at president@integrityusa.org
On March 4, 2010, the Rev. David Norgard was invited to address the students and faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary. Norgard is the President of Integrity USA. His topic was "THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION." Integrity USA has been an advocate for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church for 35 years. Norgard's historic address focuses on how far we have come and where Integrity and the Episcopal Church are heading. This address was published in two parts. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that nothing short of full inclusion is good enough for Jesus or for the church.
Read PART ONE here.
Read PART TWO here.
Open up the conversation about the future of inclusion at your school. If you are a faculty member, administrator, student, or alum of any one of the Episcopal seminaries, Integrity President David Norgard is available to speak at your school. To inquire about this possibility, please contact him at president@integrityusa.org
IN AFRICA, A STEP BACKWARD ON HUMAN RIGHTS
By Desmond Tutu
Friday, March 12, 2010
Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.
It is time to stand up against another wrong.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.
Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.
These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.
Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.
And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.
Read the rest of the Op Ed here.
The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
Monday, March 15, 2010
DAVID NORGARD'S VTS ADDRESS: THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION - Part Two
On March 4, 2010, the Rev. David Norgard was invited to address the students and faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary. Norgard is the President of Integrity USA. His topic was "THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION." Integrity USA has been an advocate for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church for 35 years. Norgard's historic address focuses on how far we have come and where Integrity and the Episcopal Church are heading. This address will be published in two parts. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that nothing short of full inclusion is good enough for Jesus or for the church.
Part One posted yesterday is here.
PART TWO begins after John Spong's Statement of Koinonia caused a turning point in the church's history of inclusion.
Still, skirmishes continued through the rest of the decade. Between General Conventions, the Episcopal Church caught the attention of our nation’s secular media by the novelty of conducting a heresy trial, namely that of the Rt. Rev. Walter Righter for ordaining a gay man named Barry Stopfel. As anachronistic – can I say medieval? – as it appeared to many reporters, several were nonetheless kind enough to note how the Episcopal Church maintained its sensibility throughout the ordeal. The Wall Street Journal, for example, noted that afternoon tea was served to the journalists and from a proper silver service.
The new century and the new millennium arrived…but not the end of the conflict. The story picks up in Minneapolis in 2003. That bastion of radical liberalism, New Hampshire, had the audacity to elect Gene Robinson, a gay man with a partner, as its bishop and, because of the timing; it was up to the General Convention to consent to the election. The line of people rising to speak their mind, pro and con and sometimes both in truly Anglican fashion, stretched all the way to the back of the huge hall. The testimony was variously emotional, logical, political, personal, and theological. Frankly, it was probably also unnecessary. Most people knew how they were going to vote before they ever entered the room. Nevertheless, the debate ran its full allotted time and then the House of Deputies voted. With a majority that was neither vast nor slim, it confirmed the election of the church’s first openly gay bishop in the church of God and the bishops did likewise, with the added dramatic flourish of a score of them abruptly walking out upon announcement of the results. Eventually, Gene tied with Desmond Tutu as the most recognized Anglican bishop in the world. (Sorry, Rowan.)
With the advent of a gay bishop, a reasonable outside observer might have expected the Episcopal Church finally to get on to other business. It had now been debating essentially the same subject for three decades. The Nicene Creed had been produced more quickly. Yet in 2006, at the proverbial eleventh hour, the same Presiding Bishop who had presided at Gene’s consecration pushed through a resolution designed to ensure that what had happened in New Hampshire stayed in New Hampshire. Although couched in sober and pious phrasing such as “exercising restraint,” Resolution BO33 basically called for a moratorium on the consecration of any more gay bishops.
That brings us close to the present moment and to Disneyland, or, I suppose I should say, to the 2009 General Convention in Anaheim, California. The passage of two resolutions by the convention brought the saga that had lasted nearly as long as “Days of our Lives” to its long-awaited conclusion. The resolution finally came.
Resolution #C056, originating from the Diocese of Missouri (whose Standing Committee just consented to the election of Mary Glasspool), moved the Episcopal Church decisively toward recognizing – and solemnizing – same-sex unions. Specifically, it acknowledged the changing legal landscape with respect to marriage and called upon our bishops to provide for generous pastoral response, especially in those places where civil unions of one sort or another are now permitted. Furthermore, it mandated the Standing Liturgical Commission “to collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same-gender relationships” while, it added, “honoring the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality.” In other words, we recognized that not everyone is happy about the emerging reality but it is what it is and we are moving forward.
The other landmark resolution, #D025, unequivocally affirmed that God has called and may call LGBT individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. In other words, the de facto moratorium of 2006 on gay and lesbian bishops was lifted and what was characterized as “inappropriate” and untimely back in 1979 was at last found to be entirely appropriate and indeed timely.
That brings us to 2010, to the present day, which is by definition of course, the threshold of the future. Looking across the ecclesiastical landscape now from the perspective of the history I have just recounted, I believe the direction that this church is headed is clear. Collectively, we are now moving in the direction of transforming the legislative victories attained at the national level into living realities at the diocesan and congregational levels. We have decided, finally and unabashedly, in favor of being the kind of faith community in which lesbian and gay people are truly part of the family. We have become a “Modern Family,” to borrow another TV show title, and Mother Church, if you will, has come out. She has come out as a “P-FLAGer.” As an individual Episcopalian and as President of Integrity, my outlook is both hopeful and optimistic because once you have come out of the closet, friends, it really is not all that easy to go back in.
Having said that, I hasten to add that, as it is with the stock market, so it is in politics: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Even the freshman student of history knows that human progress is not inexorably linear. History is littered, in fact, with examples of progress not merely coming to a halt but taking a violent u-turn. The “war to end all wars,” World War I was followed by World War II. In China, the move toward a free market was followed by the brutal clampdown of free expression in Tiananmen Square.
Nevertheless, there are multiple sound reasons for optimism. Let me cite just a few. Just recently, the Attorney General of Maryland announced his official opinion that his state should recognize same-sex unions performed elsewhere. The nearby District of Columbia, of course, just became the latest civil jurisdiction to allow such unions and even though the city has long been regarded as a bastion of liberalism (like New Hampshire), the symbolic value of the nation’s capital city doing so is potent. Likewise with Iowa: Today, in the Midwestern heartland, same-gender marriage is the law of the land and a fact of life. Looking northward from here, the Bishop of Massachusetts, Tom Shaw, has granted his clergy permission to perform marriages for same-sex couples in the churches of that diocese, C056 being his justification. And across the country in my new home diocese of Los Angeles, the convention elected the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, to serve as one of its two bishops suffragan. As of yesterday, 55 of 56 required Standing Committee consents have been received and her consecration is tentatively scheduled for May 15th.
Why all this movement in a forward direction? Fundamentally, I believe it is because nearly everyone today knows someone who is dear to them and lesbian or gay: a brother, sister, son, daughter, father, mother, neighbor, teacher, student, judge on “American Idol.” This increasing familiarity has brought contempt some places, to be sure, but mostly, to know us has been to love us.
My primary ministry these days is as an organizational development consultant to churches and nonprofits. In that work, I spend a fair amount of time helping leaders articulate mission and vision statements for their organizations and communities. A vision statement is essentially an articulation of what you want to be true when you have succeeded in your mission. It implies a commitment to do whatever is possible toward making that preferred future the reality. If I were to draft the de facto vision statement of the Episcopal Church, it might read, in part, something like this: “The community and its leadership are diverse in age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and familial constellations. This fact is a great blessing and is nurtured in the way we live together.” If this phrasing sounds familiar to you, it should be. I adapted it from the student body section of the VTS website.
As with any great cultural shift, this one will too will continue to meet resistance. A review of the national church’s website illustrates the point. There is an extensive section on diversity that includes a, b, c, d, x, y, and z…but not l, g, b, or t. Thinking historically again, just consider the Ordination of women or the adoption of the current Book of Common Prayer. Years after the formal actions were taken at General Convention moving the church forward on these matters, battles still raged on. Every great struggle, it seems, is defined by and motivated in part by the resistance with which it must continue to contend. And in this vein, I see the struggle for a diverse faith community as no exception to that historical rule. Three challenges in particular are possible and substantial enough to merit specific mention.
First is the desire for a scapegoat, a common temptation in community life. Whenever some crisis occurs or some unforeseen disaster descends upon the scene, it can seem expedient or advantageous to cast blame upon a vulnerable target. Jerry Falwell blamed AIDS on gay men, for instance. Never mind HIV. The only necessary ingredients for combustion are some inflammable scandal or incendiary economic friction coupled with invidious rhetoric.
Another viable force of resistance to a diverse church is the temptation of political expediency. It is well within the realm of possibility that the Episcopal Church might persuade itself to do the wrong thing (in my view) for the right reason. For instance, it is not implausible to imagine a scenario in which our church moves toward a recognition of global interdependence and, in the process, negotiates away aspects of its own identity or polity.
The third challenge I would name is perhaps the most worrisome of all because it pertains to our very viability as a community. I speak of the challenge of our own apparent irrelevance in the sight of the world around us. What if we Episcopalians finally do invite all the gays and lesbians in our neighborhood to our party…and they don’t to show up? What if what we have to offer is just not seen as being all that appealing? I do wonder: Have we fought for two generations to be included in a community that our younger gay brothers and lesbian sisters will simply regard as unimportant?
This question, it seems to me, leads to an even larger one: In an increasingly complicated world…one in which individuals are at once bowling alone and inextricably interdependent…one in which many doubt the primacy of any one theological narrative just as others defend their one true faith ever more militantly…one in which the strongest trend is identifying as “spiritual” and not “religious”…in such a world as this, is what we have to offer sufficiently authentic and compelling to appeal to those we would welcome?
I would like to offer two suggestions before I close. First, I believe we are perhaps uniquely positioned as a Christian denomination to offer to the spiritual seeker a community where a sense of mystery in life goes hand-in-hand with a respect for reason in the life of faith. As a communion, historically we have welcomed honest inquiry. To borrow words from the VTS website again, “our church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has been open to new truths discovered by reason and experience.” At the same time, it is a church that has generally also been open to the ineffable, especially through experience of the aesthetic. In short, we are equally comfortable with answers and questions, with art and science. In my personal experience, this perspective on the world resonates with individuals who identify as belonging to a sexual minority. It does so because, in a culture where gender roles are still defined by straight lines, they are outliers on the spectrum of conventional understandings of social reality.
Secondly, I believe we are necessarily yet nonetheless sincerely at last beginning to see ourselves not first and foremost as an institution to which people, if they have enough sense, will just join naturally. In our most vital congregations anyway, I see evidence of a very different self-understanding. Instead of institutions bound by law and dedicated to self-perpetuation, they see themselves as communities bound by love and dedicated to purposes beyond themselves. This also resonates with LGBT persons in my experience for it mirrors the story of LGBT families and communities. No social conventions have brought us together, let me assure you. It has been nothing other than the soulful desire to belong to a family of choice and a community of choice that allows us not only to be ourselves but also to be there for the other.
If we continue along these lines, I believe there is hope not just for the future of inclusion but for the future of our church over all. We will be a community whose appeal to all sorts and conditions of folk is neither a passing fad nor an artifice of political strategy but rather the natural further expression of a catholicity that stretches all the way back to the coming together of Jew and Greek.
Friends, in the first few years after the advent of the Ordination of women, I recall a question arising frequently in conversation: Do you believe in women’s Ordination? It was almost like out of the Baptismal Covenant. Whether it was intended to elicit an affirmation or a renunciation, you couldn’t always be sure. In either case, the most memorable response I ever heard came from a very sincere if somewhat naïve man who said, “Do I believe in them? I have seen them!”
As openly gay and lesbian people become a common and unremarkable aspect of the cultural landscape, I do believe that more bishops will ordain LGBT persons, more vestries will elect them to serve as rectors, more congregations will elect them to vestries, and most importantly of course, Altar Guilds won’t wince at the need to set up a wedding for two grooms or two brides. We are past the turning point. We have crossed the tipping point and the forecast is bright.
There will be resistance. The impulse to respond eagerly and faithfully to the emerging realities of each succeeding age is always met with the opposing impulse to preserve and hold fast to what has been familiar and comfortable. But as I see it, it’s not a matter of acquiescing to a more inclusive future for the sake of those who have been on the outside. It is rather a matter of embracing opportunities that give us all a future as a community – a community of mystery and reason, of determined commitment and unconditional love.
Thank you for your kind attention this evening and your willingness to reflect on these intriguing questions together. I dearly appreciate your hospitality and your openness to this conversation. I invite all of you – lay and ordained, straight and not-so-much, to walk with Integrity in your ministries going forward. It is, after all, by walking with integrity (small “I”) that we have arrived at the threshold of the future we behold, one that is bright precisely because it is blessed with a veritable rainbow of color.
Open up the conversation about the future of inclusion at your school. If you are a faculty member, administrator, student, or alum of any one of the Episcopal seminaries, Integrity President David Norgard is available to speak at your school. To inquire about this possibility, please contact him at president@integrityusa.org
Part One posted yesterday is here.
Virginia Theological Seminar
Alexandria, Virginia
March 4, 2010
The Rev. David Norgard
President, Integrity USA
PART TWO begins after John Spong's Statement of Koinonia caused a turning point in the church's history of inclusion.
Still, skirmishes continued through the rest of the decade. Between General Conventions, the Episcopal Church caught the attention of our nation’s secular media by the novelty of conducting a heresy trial, namely that of the Rt. Rev. Walter Righter for ordaining a gay man named Barry Stopfel. As anachronistic – can I say medieval? – as it appeared to many reporters, several were nonetheless kind enough to note how the Episcopal Church maintained its sensibility throughout the ordeal. The Wall Street Journal, for example, noted that afternoon tea was served to the journalists and from a proper silver service.
The new century and the new millennium arrived…but not the end of the conflict. The story picks up in Minneapolis in 2003. That bastion of radical liberalism, New Hampshire, had the audacity to elect Gene Robinson, a gay man with a partner, as its bishop and, because of the timing; it was up to the General Convention to consent to the election. The line of people rising to speak their mind, pro and con and sometimes both in truly Anglican fashion, stretched all the way to the back of the huge hall. The testimony was variously emotional, logical, political, personal, and theological. Frankly, it was probably also unnecessary. Most people knew how they were going to vote before they ever entered the room. Nevertheless, the debate ran its full allotted time and then the House of Deputies voted. With a majority that was neither vast nor slim, it confirmed the election of the church’s first openly gay bishop in the church of God and the bishops did likewise, with the added dramatic flourish of a score of them abruptly walking out upon announcement of the results. Eventually, Gene tied with Desmond Tutu as the most recognized Anglican bishop in the world. (Sorry, Rowan.)
With the advent of a gay bishop, a reasonable outside observer might have expected the Episcopal Church finally to get on to other business. It had now been debating essentially the same subject for three decades. The Nicene Creed had been produced more quickly. Yet in 2006, at the proverbial eleventh hour, the same Presiding Bishop who had presided at Gene’s consecration pushed through a resolution designed to ensure that what had happened in New Hampshire stayed in New Hampshire. Although couched in sober and pious phrasing such as “exercising restraint,” Resolution BO33 basically called for a moratorium on the consecration of any more gay bishops.
That brings us close to the present moment and to Disneyland, or, I suppose I should say, to the 2009 General Convention in Anaheim, California. The passage of two resolutions by the convention brought the saga that had lasted nearly as long as “Days of our Lives” to its long-awaited conclusion. The resolution finally came.
Resolution #C056, originating from the Diocese of Missouri (whose Standing Committee just consented to the election of Mary Glasspool), moved the Episcopal Church decisively toward recognizing – and solemnizing – same-sex unions. Specifically, it acknowledged the changing legal landscape with respect to marriage and called upon our bishops to provide for generous pastoral response, especially in those places where civil unions of one sort or another are now permitted. Furthermore, it mandated the Standing Liturgical Commission “to collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same-gender relationships” while, it added, “honoring the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality.” In other words, we recognized that not everyone is happy about the emerging reality but it is what it is and we are moving forward.
The other landmark resolution, #D025, unequivocally affirmed that God has called and may call LGBT individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. In other words, the de facto moratorium of 2006 on gay and lesbian bishops was lifted and what was characterized as “inappropriate” and untimely back in 1979 was at last found to be entirely appropriate and indeed timely.
That brings us to 2010, to the present day, which is by definition of course, the threshold of the future. Looking across the ecclesiastical landscape now from the perspective of the history I have just recounted, I believe the direction that this church is headed is clear. Collectively, we are now moving in the direction of transforming the legislative victories attained at the national level into living realities at the diocesan and congregational levels. We have decided, finally and unabashedly, in favor of being the kind of faith community in which lesbian and gay people are truly part of the family. We have become a “Modern Family,” to borrow another TV show title, and Mother Church, if you will, has come out. She has come out as a “P-FLAGer.” As an individual Episcopalian and as President of Integrity, my outlook is both hopeful and optimistic because once you have come out of the closet, friends, it really is not all that easy to go back in.
Having said that, I hasten to add that, as it is with the stock market, so it is in politics: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Even the freshman student of history knows that human progress is not inexorably linear. History is littered, in fact, with examples of progress not merely coming to a halt but taking a violent u-turn. The “war to end all wars,” World War I was followed by World War II. In China, the move toward a free market was followed by the brutal clampdown of free expression in Tiananmen Square.
Nevertheless, there are multiple sound reasons for optimism. Let me cite just a few. Just recently, the Attorney General of Maryland announced his official opinion that his state should recognize same-sex unions performed elsewhere. The nearby District of Columbia, of course, just became the latest civil jurisdiction to allow such unions and even though the city has long been regarded as a bastion of liberalism (like New Hampshire), the symbolic value of the nation’s capital city doing so is potent. Likewise with Iowa: Today, in the Midwestern heartland, same-gender marriage is the law of the land and a fact of life. Looking northward from here, the Bishop of Massachusetts, Tom Shaw, has granted his clergy permission to perform marriages for same-sex couples in the churches of that diocese, C056 being his justification. And across the country in my new home diocese of Los Angeles, the convention elected the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, to serve as one of its two bishops suffragan. As of yesterday, 55 of 56 required Standing Committee consents have been received and her consecration is tentatively scheduled for May 15th.
Why all this movement in a forward direction? Fundamentally, I believe it is because nearly everyone today knows someone who is dear to them and lesbian or gay: a brother, sister, son, daughter, father, mother, neighbor, teacher, student, judge on “American Idol.” This increasing familiarity has brought contempt some places, to be sure, but mostly, to know us has been to love us.
My primary ministry these days is as an organizational development consultant to churches and nonprofits. In that work, I spend a fair amount of time helping leaders articulate mission and vision statements for their organizations and communities. A vision statement is essentially an articulation of what you want to be true when you have succeeded in your mission. It implies a commitment to do whatever is possible toward making that preferred future the reality. If I were to draft the de facto vision statement of the Episcopal Church, it might read, in part, something like this: “The community and its leadership are diverse in age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and familial constellations. This fact is a great blessing and is nurtured in the way we live together.” If this phrasing sounds familiar to you, it should be. I adapted it from the student body section of the VTS website.
As with any great cultural shift, this one will too will continue to meet resistance. A review of the national church’s website illustrates the point. There is an extensive section on diversity that includes a, b, c, d, x, y, and z…but not l, g, b, or t. Thinking historically again, just consider the Ordination of women or the adoption of the current Book of Common Prayer. Years after the formal actions were taken at General Convention moving the church forward on these matters, battles still raged on. Every great struggle, it seems, is defined by and motivated in part by the resistance with which it must continue to contend. And in this vein, I see the struggle for a diverse faith community as no exception to that historical rule. Three challenges in particular are possible and substantial enough to merit specific mention.
First is the desire for a scapegoat, a common temptation in community life. Whenever some crisis occurs or some unforeseen disaster descends upon the scene, it can seem expedient or advantageous to cast blame upon a vulnerable target. Jerry Falwell blamed AIDS on gay men, for instance. Never mind HIV. The only necessary ingredients for combustion are some inflammable scandal or incendiary economic friction coupled with invidious rhetoric.
Another viable force of resistance to a diverse church is the temptation of political expediency. It is well within the realm of possibility that the Episcopal Church might persuade itself to do the wrong thing (in my view) for the right reason. For instance, it is not implausible to imagine a scenario in which our church moves toward a recognition of global interdependence and, in the process, negotiates away aspects of its own identity or polity.
The third challenge I would name is perhaps the most worrisome of all because it pertains to our very viability as a community. I speak of the challenge of our own apparent irrelevance in the sight of the world around us. What if we Episcopalians finally do invite all the gays and lesbians in our neighborhood to our party…and they don’t to show up? What if what we have to offer is just not seen as being all that appealing? I do wonder: Have we fought for two generations to be included in a community that our younger gay brothers and lesbian sisters will simply regard as unimportant?
This question, it seems to me, leads to an even larger one: In an increasingly complicated world…one in which individuals are at once bowling alone and inextricably interdependent…one in which many doubt the primacy of any one theological narrative just as others defend their one true faith ever more militantly…one in which the strongest trend is identifying as “spiritual” and not “religious”…in such a world as this, is what we have to offer sufficiently authentic and compelling to appeal to those we would welcome?
I would like to offer two suggestions before I close. First, I believe we are perhaps uniquely positioned as a Christian denomination to offer to the spiritual seeker a community where a sense of mystery in life goes hand-in-hand with a respect for reason in the life of faith. As a communion, historically we have welcomed honest inquiry. To borrow words from the VTS website again, “our church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has been open to new truths discovered by reason and experience.” At the same time, it is a church that has generally also been open to the ineffable, especially through experience of the aesthetic. In short, we are equally comfortable with answers and questions, with art and science. In my personal experience, this perspective on the world resonates with individuals who identify as belonging to a sexual minority. It does so because, in a culture where gender roles are still defined by straight lines, they are outliers on the spectrum of conventional understandings of social reality.
Secondly, I believe we are necessarily yet nonetheless sincerely at last beginning to see ourselves not first and foremost as an institution to which people, if they have enough sense, will just join naturally. In our most vital congregations anyway, I see evidence of a very different self-understanding. Instead of institutions bound by law and dedicated to self-perpetuation, they see themselves as communities bound by love and dedicated to purposes beyond themselves. This also resonates with LGBT persons in my experience for it mirrors the story of LGBT families and communities. No social conventions have brought us together, let me assure you. It has been nothing other than the soulful desire to belong to a family of choice and a community of choice that allows us not only to be ourselves but also to be there for the other.
If we continue along these lines, I believe there is hope not just for the future of inclusion but for the future of our church over all. We will be a community whose appeal to all sorts and conditions of folk is neither a passing fad nor an artifice of political strategy but rather the natural further expression of a catholicity that stretches all the way back to the coming together of Jew and Greek.
Friends, in the first few years after the advent of the Ordination of women, I recall a question arising frequently in conversation: Do you believe in women’s Ordination? It was almost like out of the Baptismal Covenant. Whether it was intended to elicit an affirmation or a renunciation, you couldn’t always be sure. In either case, the most memorable response I ever heard came from a very sincere if somewhat naïve man who said, “Do I believe in them? I have seen them!”
As openly gay and lesbian people become a common and unremarkable aspect of the cultural landscape, I do believe that more bishops will ordain LGBT persons, more vestries will elect them to serve as rectors, more congregations will elect them to vestries, and most importantly of course, Altar Guilds won’t wince at the need to set up a wedding for two grooms or two brides. We are past the turning point. We have crossed the tipping point and the forecast is bright.
There will be resistance. The impulse to respond eagerly and faithfully to the emerging realities of each succeeding age is always met with the opposing impulse to preserve and hold fast to what has been familiar and comfortable. But as I see it, it’s not a matter of acquiescing to a more inclusive future for the sake of those who have been on the outside. It is rather a matter of embracing opportunities that give us all a future as a community – a community of mystery and reason, of determined commitment and unconditional love.
Thank you for your kind attention this evening and your willingness to reflect on these intriguing questions together. I dearly appreciate your hospitality and your openness to this conversation. I invite all of you – lay and ordained, straight and not-so-much, to walk with Integrity in your ministries going forward. It is, after all, by walking with integrity (small “I”) that we have arrived at the threshold of the future we behold, one that is bright precisely because it is blessed with a veritable rainbow of color.
Open up the conversation about the future of inclusion at your school. If you are a faculty member, administrator, student, or alum of any one of the Episcopal seminaries, Integrity President David Norgard is available to speak at your school. To inquire about this possibility, please contact him at president@integrityusa.org
Sunday, March 14, 2010
DAVID NORGARD'S VTS ADDRESS: THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION - Part One
On March 4, 2010, the Rev. David Norgard was invited to address the students and faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary. Norgard is the President of Integrity USA. His topic was "THE FUTURE OF INCLUSION." Integrity USA has been an advocate for full inclusion in the Episcopal Church for 35 years. Norgard's historic address focuses on how far we have come and where Integrity and the Episcopal Church are heading. This address will be published in two parts. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that nothing short of full inclusion is good enough for Jesus or for the church.
Virginia Theological Seminar
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
March 4, 2010
The Rev. David Norgard
President, Integrity USA
Good evening. I want to begin by thanking the Dean for the invitation to be with you this evening. It was a most gracious offer that he made to me to come and speak here at the seminary and I am delighted to be doing just that. I also wish to thank you all for being here. I consider it both a great pleasure and a privilege to share with you my perspective on “The Future of Inclusion in the Episcopal Church.”
As you may be aware, the Dean issued the invitation to me to speak on this topic in my capacity as President of Integrity USA. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, Integrity is an organization dedicated to advancing the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons (LGBT) in the life and ministry of the Episcopal Church. Composed of individual members and parish partners from across the country, it has been engaged in its ministry of advocacy and education for thirty-five years now, ever since being founded by an Episcopal layman from Georgia, Dr. Louie Crew, in 1974.
When Mike Angell, a student here from the Diocese of San Diego and occasional preacher to the President, first contacted me about arranging this visit, he posed a straightforward yet intriguing question: What is the future of inclusion in the Episcopal Church? If I were someone who was prone to pithy answers, I would say “bright” and call for the next question. The very fact of my being here – at the Virginia Theological Seminary – as President of Integrity – provides strong evidence for the soundness of such optimism. There was a time within the living memory of some in this room (myself included), when such an occasion as this would not have been contemplated, let alone realized. This moment we are sharing right now, my friends, is in itself richly symbolic of the long road we have traveled together as Episcopalians over the past four decades. In fact, I believe that it is a directional sign toward where we are headed as a church….as you put it here, “orthodox and open”
I am not prone to pithy answers though, as you can already tell. So I would like to expand on my sunny forecast and give you a full report of the indicators as I read them. Speculating intelligently on the future is always first an exercise in interpreting history, particularly recent history. So let me begin there.
Recent history clearly has been a story of advances toward a more and more inclusive church, with only occasional setbacks. Looking at the issue broadly, we can see this progression a number of ways. For instance, we can observe how the role of women in the church has evolved and expanded. Thirty-five years ago, there were no women in the House of Bishops. Now there are sixteen. Thirty-five years ago, women were still somewhat new to the House of Deputies. Now a woman is President. In a similar vein, we can look at how the Spanish language has entered the life of the domestic Episcopal Church. Four decades ago, to hear Spanish in an Episcopal church was a novelty. Nowadays, many dioceses have at least one congregation where Spanish the primary language. We can look at various demographic trends and, generally speaking, they point to a denomination that is exhibiting more diversity in both its membership and leadership. My particular competence, however, lies in the area of the conscious inclusion of sexual minorities and, on the national level, that particular storyline begins in 1976.
That year General Convention debated a resolution which acknowledged and recognized homosexual persons as [quote] “children of God.” When you stop to think about that for a moment now, in 2010, to some of us it sounds just a little quaint…kind yet presumptuous in that old-guard, true-blue Episcopalian sort of way. That body of mostly churchmen, in all their magnanimity and sagacity, were moved to vote on the question of who was a child of God.
Thankfully – and to the great relief of many whose ontological validity hung in the balance, the vote was in the affirmative. (Don’t some of you feel much better now?!) Soon after that, presumably in the spirit of that declaration, the Bishop of New York, Paul Moore, ordained the first openly lesbian woman to the priesthood, Ellen Barrett, at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan.
The church at large was not at all amused, however. Mountains of letters of protest were delivered both to the parish rectory and the diocesan chancery, including (sadly) no small number of bodily threats and spiritual curses. Apparently, being a child of God was one thing; being a priest was entirely another. In a notable demonstration of elegant backtracking, another resolution passed at the next convention, declaring the Ordination of “practicing homosexuals” to be “inappropriate” at that time.
Permit me a personal excursus here. Despite the apparently ill-timed nature of my desire or desires (whichever), upon returning from the convention in Denver, I proceeded with my own plan of seeking Ordination and enrolling in seminary. It was a very big step for my home diocese, Minnesota, to sponsor an openly gay man. As a lot, Minnesotans are quite reluctant to be inappropriate; it’s just not in their nature. But the bishop, Robert Anderson, was a man of steadfast conviction and quiet courage. As the local process proceeded and the national debate intensified, he never wavered in his support. I recall one instance that might resonate especially with those here tonight. After receiving my admission application, the dean of the divinity school where I applied called my bishop to express his serious concern. He explained ever so delicately, almost apologetically, that I had listed Integrity – of all things – among my church involvements. The dean discreetly whispered over the phone to the bishop, “He is probably gay;” to which the bishop whispered back, “Actually, I have met his partner, and he is definitely gay…Is there some problem?” There was none for him if there wasn’t any for the bishop, the dean stuttered, leaving the bishop to wonder: Was it his chairmanship of the board or his matter-of-fact approach that had been more persuasive?
Back to the larger saga: For the next dozen years, no convention was without its resolutions about homosexuality. The topic seemed to move from being the love that dare not speak its name to the debate that would never end. Meanwhile, more and more lesbian and gay people, lay and ordained, lived on one side or another of an increasingly sharp and deep divide within the church. On the one side, more than one bishop prohibited any known homosexuals from serving at their cathedral’s Altar, unless they first took a vow of celibacy. At a prominent seminary, openly gay clergy were barred from serving as supervisors of field education. On the other side, another divinity school named a scholarship after Dr. Crew…and several bishops became increasingly vocal about their gay-supportive views, rejecting outright the argument that the church would fall apart if it accepted lesbian and gay people fully. Douglas Theuner, a predecessor of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire, coined the rallying cry of the whole movement. “There can be no unity without justice,” he declared emphatically to the House of Bishops. For years, his quote was displayed on the front cover of every Voice of Integrity magazine. And I dare say that it is still timely and pertinent today on an even larger plane.
By the start of the nineties, more than a decade of debates and studies and hearings and speeches had brought no resolution. They had brought dozens of resolutions actually but no solution to the controversy. So, what was an “Episcopal” church to do when confronted with such vexation? Turn to its bishops was the answer that came to the Phoenix convention in ’91. The theologians among them (“bishops” and “theologians” not being coterminous, you realize) would undertake another extensive study and report back at Indianapolis in ’94. If nothing else, we are a studious church. Just parenthetically, I do wonder about our bishops sometimes. They have studied homosexuality for years and some still claim to be perplexed. It only took me a summer to learn it…but I suppose that is a story for another time.
Back to Indianapolis: The bishop who succeeded Paul Moore of New York, a man by the slightly unfortunate name of Dick Grein, delivered the report to a packed and tense House of Bishops. The report started well enough from the perspective of those hopeful for a breakthrough in LGBT equality. It recognized that gay people existed, that they were in the church, that indeed they were children of God, that they did some good things, and that many of them were actually very nice…lovely, in fact…devoted to partners, devoted to church, great on the Altar Guild, etc., etc…but…But the report concluded, nevertheless, they still should not be ordained and we should not be marrying them either, particularly to each other.
That night everyone felt a pall hang over the entire convention. Liberals were in despair. Conservatives were anxious. What would happen next? It was not at all obvious. Integrity folk worried: Would these unfounded conclusions somehow end up enshrined in canon law? Had the struggles and efforts of so many of us for so long been for naught? As a church, were we about to retrench?
Well, perhaps I should have guessed what was coming, since I happened to know the antagonist so well. The next afternoon, a son of this very seminary, the famous or infamous Bishop of Newark, Jack Spong, stood to a point of personal privilege. Slowly, dramatically, he read what eventually became known as a Statement of Koinonia, i.e. of community. With forceful eloquence, he stated unequivocally that he would ordain whoever was fit and called, homosexual or heterosexual. He took a similar stand with respect to blessing the committed relationships of same-gender couples. Then, with savvy and audacity, he invited his colleagues with courage enough to share his convictions publicly to sign the statement along with him. That evening the special service sponsored by Integrity was overflowing…and so were the tears. By 7:00 o’clock, about five hours later, dozens of other bishops had signed that statement and by late the next day the number had reached 78. There could be no mistake. It was by no means the end of the struggle…but our church had reached a turning point. TO BE CONTINUED.........
Part II of The Rev. David Norgard's VTS address: The Future of Inclusion will be published tomorrow.
Open up the conversation about the future of inclusion at your school. If you are a faculty member, administrator, student, or alum of any one of the Episcopal seminaries, Integrity President David Norgard is available to speak at your school. To inquire about this possibility, please contact him at president@integrityusa.org
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
L.A. Diocese receives majority of Standing Committee consents to elections of Mary Glasspool and Diane Bruce as bishops suffragan
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Los Angeles has received the necessary majority of Standing Committee consents to the December 2009 elections of the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce and the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as bishops suffragan to serve the six-county Los Angeles diocese.
The Los Angeles Standing Committee reported March 10 that within the last 64 days it has received 61 consents needed to the election of Glasspool, and 78 consents to the election of Bruce. In each election a majority of 56 consents was needed from the counterpart Standing Committees of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
The consent process to Glasspool’s election is not complete until the Presiding Bishop’s Office in New York confirms that it has received the necessary majority of consents from bishops with jurisdiction in the dioceses of the Church. Meanwhile, the Presiding Bishop’s Office has notified the Los Angeles Standing Committee that 58 of the 61 Standing Committee consents received have been verified to date.
Read the rest of the story here.
The total of votes from bishops with jurisdiction is still pending.
The Los Angeles Standing Committee reported March 10 that within the last 64 days it has received 61 consents needed to the election of Glasspool, and 78 consents to the election of Bruce. In each election a majority of 56 consents was needed from the counterpart Standing Committees of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
The consent process to Glasspool’s election is not complete until the Presiding Bishop’s Office in New York confirms that it has received the necessary majority of consents from bishops with jurisdiction in the dioceses of the Church. Meanwhile, the Presiding Bishop’s Office has notified the Los Angeles Standing Committee that 58 of the 61 Standing Committee consents received have been verified to date.
Read the rest of the story here.
The total of votes from bishops with jurisdiction is still pending.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Rev. David Tarbet remembered for seeking 'the Gospel in people' and ways to serve
"It was a lovely evening albeit more sad because of David's death," said Carol Barnwell, director of communications for the Diocese of Texas. "My kids grew up with David at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston as their acolyte coach. I have a picture of him holding my daughter, Elli, at our house following her baptism. She's now 24," she added.
Tarbet was also known for his wit, sense of humor, administrative abilities and wisdom, said the Rev. Jeffrey Walker in a March 8 telephone interview. "One of the jokes we've been saying, as I'm getting ready to preach for his funeral on Thursday, is that the planning would have been done a lot better if David could do it," Walker said.
"David was a very quiet person, quiet but steadfast. He just never gave up on anyone, which was one of the things really beautiful about him," said Walker, a former rector of Palmer Church, where Tarbet served as associate rector.
"David was so devoted to what the priesthood meant to him and to our sacramental life. It was an honor to stand at an altar with him for 14 years," Walker recalled.
"There were people in the church … for whom it was hard to see love, but David would find it, he would find the Gospel in that person. I was almost ashamed because he was better at it than I was. If people did not love him that did not stop him from finding what was godly about them."
Walker said he planned to talk about "how much he loved this church of ours. There are people that, when something's disagreeable they simply turn their back and walk away, but David did not do that.
"It was the gospel for everybody or for nobody, according to David … and in the Diocese of Texas that was not always an easy place to stand. I am going to miss him so much."
He said that Tarbet had long been plagued with crippling arthritis and two years ago had developed heart problems. "While his death did not come as a surprise to anyone, it came as a sadness," he said.
He said that Tarbet was a remarkably witty person, but quiet and "would want to be remembered as a steadfast priest of this church who was humble to be a priest but who was grateful to be a priest. That was his identity."
Tarbet had attended the very first convention of Integrity, a national support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Episcopalians, said Louie Crew of the Diocese of Newark.
"David was never looking for the camera, always looking for quiet ways to serve," Crew said in a telephone interview March 8.
"He was never a rector, except as an interim and that was by his choice. He didn't seek any kind of limelight. He was enormously generous, extremely competent. He suffered a great deal from chronic arthritis," he added.
He remembered Tarbet as having "a marvelous smile and a mischievous sense of humor, but was never bitter when many other people might have been," given his illness and other challenges.
He said Tarbet had served as a regional vice president of Integrity, and had attended the founding convention, held at St. James Cathedral in Chicago in 1975.
He described Tarbet as someone with a great deal of personal dignity who was also "very generous, particularly toward gay and lesbian youth, and for many years he gave a life membership to the youngest person who came to the convention to encourage support for young people.
"It is important to stress that he was an out gay priest in a diocese that doesn't ordain gay priests," Crew added. "He was already ordained before he came out and bore witness there. It takes a great deal of courage to do that in a way that lasts 36 or more years with that kind of openness."
Tarbet was born in Fort Worth on March 6, 1941 to Robert Morgan and Edith Tarbet. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas in 1963 and a master of divinity degree from the General Theological Seminary in 1966. He also earned a master of arts degree from the University of Texas at Houston in 1979.
He was ordained to the diaconate June 15, 1966 and to the priesthood in Dec. 21, 1966.
He had served as a curate (1968-1970) and as an interim rector (2002-2003) at Grace Church in Galveston. He also served as associate rector of Palmer Memorial Church in Houston from 1970-1996 and on the staff of Trinity Church, Houston from 1997 to 1999 and St. John's, Fort Worth, from 1966 to 1968.
Active on a diocesan level, he served as historian from 1998 to 2005; a member of the AIDS Commission, 1982 to 2005; a member of the liturgical commission from 1982 to 2005 diocesan In Galveston, he was interim rector of Grace Church from 2002-2003.
Survivors include a brother and sister-in-law, the Rev. Robert and Beverly Tarbet; a niece, Jennifer Johnson, a nephew, Chris Tarbet and their families.
A requiem Eucharist will be celebrated at Trinity Episcopal Church, Thursday, Mach 11, at 2:00 p.m. with Bishop C. Andrew Doyle officiating.
Donations in lieu of flowers should be made to Trinity Episcopal Church, 1015 Holman St., Houston TX 77004-3810 or to Lord of the Streets, 3401 Fannin St., Houston, TX 77004.
Monday, March 8, 2010
TIME MAGAZINE: Being Gay in Uganda: One Couple's Story
Postcard from Kampala
By Glenna Gordon,
Monday, Mar. 08, 2010
Pepe Julian Onziema looks great in a suit. Tall and lanky, she doesn't slouch to hide her height and doesn't apologize for her boyish figure. Or for anything. She's got at least 10 suits: pinstripes, white linen, black, gray, navy and others. She buys them from a guy who runs a shop on Entebbe Road, a major Kampala thoroughfare. He knows her build, and he knows what she likes.
These days, though, Onziema doesn't wear suits nearly as often as she used to. As one of a dozen or so publicly out Ugandan homosexuals, Onziema knows that even a trip to a local shop is risky. Wearing a suit can be a death wish.
(See a gay right's timeline.)
Last year, a member of Uganda's parliament, David Bahati, introduced a bill that, if it becomes law, will further criminalize homosexuality in Uganda. "Aggravated homosexuality," according to the bill, will become a capital offense. Anyone who doesn't report a known homosexual within 24 hours will be subject to punishment of up to seven years in jail.
No matter how many precautions homosexuals in Uganda take, it doesn't mean they'll be safe, says Onziema's partner, who did not want her name used for fear she will be persecuted. "When you're just walking, someone will turn and look, and have a second look, and a third, and a fourth." That's not surprising in a country where newspaper polls show 95% of people support the bill.
(Read: "Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S.")
Onziema and her partner met playing rugby at a local Kampala club a couple of years ago. Onziema knew "within five seconds" that she had met the one, she says. It took her partner a bit longer. Onziema has known she's gay her whole life but her partner is not out publicly, and the process of coming to terms with who she is took a little longer.
Read the rest of the article here .
Friday, March 5, 2010
Latin America's 1st gay marriage law takes effect
MEXICO CITY — Throngs of Mexico City gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses Thursday, the day Latin America's first gay-marriage law took effect.
The first gay weddings will take place within a week to 10 days, after the paperwork is processed.
Mexico City's legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The change will allow same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.
Read the rest from AP here: http://tinyurl.com/ybby6al
The first gay weddings will take place within a week to 10 days, after the paperwork is processed.
Mexico City's legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The change will allow same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.
Read the rest from AP here: http://tinyurl.com/ybby6al
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
ACTION ITEM: CALL FOR DON'T ASK DON'T TELL
Call your Senator: Ask them to co-sponsor the new bill repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Senator Joe Leiberman just introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act -- which would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and put in place a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It's crucial that we keep up the pressure on our Senators to cosponsor this bill and end DADT this year.
Call the Senate switchboard now at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak with each of your Senators.
Example Script for Your Call:
Hello, my name is __________ and I'm calling from __________ (city, state).I'm calling to urge the Senator to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and cosponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. This discrimination is wrong. Firing qualified service members simply because they're gay needs to stop in 2010. Will the Senator cosponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act?
Thank you.
Not sure who your Senators are? Click here to find out. If you live in Washington, D.C., please call Sen. Carl Levin, thank him for cosponsoring the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, and tell him to include DADT repeal in the defense authorization bill.
Senator Joe Leiberman just introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act -- which would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and put in place a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It's crucial that we keep up the pressure on our Senators to cosponsor this bill and end DADT this year.
Call the Senate switchboard now at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak with each of your Senators.
Example Script for Your Call:
Hello, my name is __________ and I'm calling from __________ (city, state).I'm calling to urge the Senator to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and cosponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. This discrimination is wrong. Firing qualified service members simply because they're gay needs to stop in 2010. Will the Senator cosponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act?
Thank you.
Not sure who your Senators are? Click here to find out. If you live in Washington, D.C., please call Sen. Carl Levin, thank him for cosponsoring the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, and tell him to include DADT repeal in the defense authorization bill.
UK LIFTS BAN ON SAME SEX CIVIL PARTNERSHIP CEREMONIES INSIDE CHURCHES
LONDON - March 3, 2010
The House of Lords agreed an amendment to the Equality Bill which would allow, but not compel, religious organisations to host the occasions.
Gay rights campaigners celebrated the change, but opponents said it could be impractical and undermine marriage.
Peers voted by a majority of 74 in favour of the amendment, which was not backed by the government.
It is yet to be approved by the Commons, but it is thought to be unlikely that MPs would make any significant changes.
'Religious freedom'
Labour peer Lord Alli proposed the amendment, telling the Lords: "There are many gay and lesbian couples who want to share their civil partnership with the congregations that they worship with.
"And there are a number of religious organisations that want to allow gay and lesbian couples to do exactly that."
We, like the government and the courts, have been quite clear ever since civil partnerships were introduced that they are not the same as marriage
Bishop of Bradford
He said: "In the end it comes down to an issue of religious freedom."
It was not an "attack" on the Church of England or the Catholic Church, he added.
Lord Alli said: "Religious freedom requires us to let others do things that we ourselves would not do. Religious freedom cannot begin and end with what one religion wants."
Read the rest of the story here.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Supreme Court Refuses To Block Same Sex Marriage in DC
From the Huffington Post March 2, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block the District of Columbia's gay marriage law, freeing the city to issue its first marriage licenses to same-sex couples the following day.
Opponents of gay marriage in the nation's capital had asked Chief Justice John Roberts to stop the city from issuing the licenses on Wednesday while they appealed. They argued that D.C. voters should have been allowed to vote on the issue. Local courts have rejected the opponents' arguments.
"It has been the practice of the court to defer to the decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia on matters of exclusively local concern," said Roberts, writing for the court.
He also pointed out that Congress could have voted to stop the city government from putting the law into effect and didn't.
Opponents have also asked city courts to allow a voter referendum on gay marriage, and they "will have the right to challenge any adverse decision ... in this court at the appropriate time," Roberts said.
The city has said Wednesday probably will be the first day same-sex couples can apply for marriage licenses. Couples still will have to wait three full business days for their licenses before exchanging vows.
Same-sex marriages are also legal in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Iowa
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block the District of Columbia's gay marriage law, freeing the city to issue its first marriage licenses to same-sex couples the following day.
Opponents of gay marriage in the nation's capital had asked Chief Justice John Roberts to stop the city from issuing the licenses on Wednesday while they appealed. They argued that D.C. voters should have been allowed to vote on the issue. Local courts have rejected the opponents' arguments.
"It has been the practice of the court to defer to the decisions of the courts of the District of Columbia on matters of exclusively local concern," said Roberts, writing for the court.
He also pointed out that Congress could have voted to stop the city government from putting the law into effect and didn't.
Opponents have also asked city courts to allow a voter referendum on gay marriage, and they "will have the right to challenge any adverse decision ... in this court at the appropriate time," Roberts said.
The city has said Wednesday probably will be the first day same-sex couples can apply for marriage licenses. Couples still will have to wait three full business days for their licenses before exchanging vows.
Same-sex marriages are also legal in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Iowa
Monday, March 1, 2010
INTEGRITY LEADER FOCUSES ON NEW STRATEGIC PLAN
In keeping with Integrity USA's new strategic plan, the Vice President for Local Affairs, Neil Houghton, will meet with Integrity Province Coordinators across the country to develop and implement plans to strengthen local leadership and chapters. "The next steps for Integrity are to work at provincial and diocesean levels to make the legislative victories at GC2009 a reality everywhere," said Houghton. "This means working directly with dioceses and congregations for the full inlcusion of all the baptized into the sacraments of the church."
This month, Houghton travels to Connecticut. Neil and Integrity Province 1 Coordinator, John-Albert Moseley of Hartford, will hold a joint meeting with the leadership and members of Integrity/Connecticut (Hartford) and Integrity/Waterbury.
"I look forward to my trip to Connecticut and want to issue an invitation to all the LGBTQ faithful in the area, our straight allies and friends and everyone who champions inclusion in the Episcopal Church to join us on March 16th for a Eucharist will be celebrated by the Rev. Michelle Hansen at St. John's Parish,"
St. John's Parish is located at 16 Church Street,in Waterbury, CT. The Eucharist begins at 5:30pm and the meeting will follow and is open to all.
Houghton will deliver his "FAQs" presentation. He will answer those commonly asked questions that inquiring minds want to know including why do we need Integrity when LGBTQ people are more welcome now than ever before in the Episcopal Church? What are Integrity's goals? Where do we go from here in Connecticut?
"Connecticut is an exciting place for the LGBTQ faithful right now," said Houghton, "It is a state where Civil Marriage Equality is a reality and where C056 can be modeled, like Massachusetts, with regard to 'generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church.' Also, God willing, the election of Bishop-Elect Ian Douglas will receive the requesite cpnsents and hewill be consecrated on April 17, 2010. Integrity looks forward to an continuing its active presence in the state."
SAVE THE DATE
Eucharist & Meeting: March 16th, 2010
St. John' Parish
16 Church St.
Waterbury, CT
5:30pm
For more information contact: neil@integrityusa.org
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