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A Godly Gay
A Godly Gay
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| Ken Poppe, dean and rector of St. Paul's Cathedral |
Burlington Cathedral Supports Gene Robinson as NH Bishop
by Margaret Porter
Despite two last-minute ‘moral fitness’ challenges, Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson was confirmed as the bishop elect of the Diocese of New Hampshire in early August. In addition, Episcopal General Convention delegates voted to allow individual bishops to decide whether to bless same-sex unions within their dioceses but stopped short of endorsing a denomination-wide liturgy for such ceremonies.
Ken Poppe, the dean and rector of St. Paul’s (Episcopal) Cathedral in Burlington, said he has known Gene Robinson for 30 years. “He will bring much to the church. His election makes an important statement about the welcome we bring to all people of faith, including all sexual orientations.”
Poppe continued, “The Scriptures support moving ahead with social change. We are all made in the image of God, and if a person has been baptized, they should be able to be ordained. Of course, how we live our lives is important. We would not be in favor of promiscuity.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is head of the worldwide 77 million-member Anglican Communion (including the 2.3 million-member U.S. Episcopal Church). Although he is considered a liberal, he has called for an extraordinary meeting of church leaders in October to discuss the unprecedented elevation of a gay man to the Episcopate. Earlier this year, he asked a celibate gay priest who had been appointed bishop in England to resign to avoid controversy. Anglican bishops in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Australia and conservative Episcopalian bishops in the U. S. have threatened to declare the U.S. church “out of communion” and/or to split the church over the issue.
The conservatives’ position is based on traditional interpretations of a few passages of Old and New Testament declaring that sex between men is an “abomination.”
Robinson was quoted in the Sunday Times (London) as saying, “Frankly, most young people I’ve talked to have resolved the issue of homosexuality and think the church is hopelessly irrelevant fighting about it. Are we winning anyone to Christ with these battles? I think not.” He has said the he wants to be known as a good bishop, not the gay bishop.
The Web Site Challenge
Robinson, elected as bishop-designate in June by priests and lay leaders in the diocese of New Hampshire, faced intense media scrutiny as delegates to the triennial Episcopal convention met in Minnesota. The hottest item on the agenda was Robinson’s confirmation, although nine other bishops-elect also faced confirmation and delegates deliberated on dozens of other questions and issues.
His candidacy was opposed by conservative bishops, two of whom brought forward an eleventh-hour allegation that Robinson was involved in a youth organization from whose web page one could find links to a porn site.
Robinson had already faced and passed two votes when the allegation of a connection to the Outright (New Hampshire) web page surfaced. Robinson had helped to found the lgbtq youth organization several years ago, but had not been associated with it recently. The web page had been built only within the last year.
An editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune characterized the pornography challenge as a “phony accusation... a deliberate, calculated lie, apparently held in reserve until the last minute.”
The Star Tribune did its own investigation of the Outright web site porn link and discovered that it would take seven clicks and a credit card to actually view content that might be considered pornographic. The Outright.org website has links to ten Outright groups in northern New England that, said Outright Vermont executive director B.J. Rogers, share only “similar names, goals, and missions,” but no formal affiliation.
There are six Outright organizations in Maine, three in New Hampshire, and one in Vermont. The New Hampshire site had a link to bisexual.org, which contained a link to a site called “3 Pillows,” a bi “erotica” site, with two warning screens and a registration with credit card screen. The Concord, NH, Outright website has since removed the link to bi.org.
Outright Vermont Responds
Outright Vermont’s director B.J. Rogers said in a prepared statement, “The allegations made against [Gene Robinson] are sadly predictable and familiar.... Such allegations, made at the eleventh hour and in the spirit of homophobia and heterosexism, most often contain little or no truth and are simply attempts at smearing honorable people and honorable work.”
Rogers said that any links on the Outright Vermont web site “have been visited individually by members of Outright Vermont’s staff and have been deemed appropriate for youth viewing.” He continued, “Despite the risk of our site being used or interpreted inappropriately, we believe strongly that the information contained on the site, and accessible from our site, is vital to the health and safety of young queer Vermonters.”
Outright Vermont’s web coordinator, Lluvia Mulvaney-Stanak, wrote in an email that the media attention “caused a huge surge in visits to our OutrightVT.org website,” to the tune of “11,000 extra visits during the three days of media blitz.” A typical three-day hit rate is about 120 visits. “Due to our youth focus, we always have many pictures of queer youth here in Vermont,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote. “With the increase in visits from folks that might not have been visiting us for supportive reasons, we decided to temporarily remove pictures of the youth.”
The Homosexual Harassment Challenge
The other challenge came from the Zion Episcopal Church of Manchester, Vermont, from lay leader David Lewis. He had emailed an allegation of “homosexual harassment” against Gene Robinson to the bishops at the convention. He implied that Robinson’s conduct was comparable to that of a “womanizer.” When the charge was investigated, the “inappropriate touch” was found to have been an arm around the back and a hand on the forearm during a conversation in the presence of others. The Bishops investigating the allegation decided the touch did not rise to the level of harassment and would not have been considered inappropriate by most people. Lewis declined to make a formal charge, and the matter was officially dropped.
But according to a Rutland Herald report, “hate mail poured in” to the parish following the dismissal of the harassment allegation, accusing it of being a “hotbed of homophobia.” Lewis’s priest, Rev. John Mitchell, urged Zion parish members to support Lewis and his wife and not to shun them.
The Rutland Herald article cited a report in the Boston Globe that Lewis had twice attempted to become a priest in the Diocese of Los Angeles. He had also tried to become a priest in Vermont but was not ordained.
The bishop of the Diocese of Vermont, Thomas Ely, met with Zion Episcopal parishioners on the Sunday following the convention to discuss church teachings on sexuality.
Burlington Episcopals Embrace Election
Robinson’s election, St. Paul’s Dean Ken Poppe said, “is not the beginning of our work on these issues. We’ve been doing this work for years. In this diocese we have many gay and lesbian members in our church and in our leadership, including many gay and lesbian priests.”
The Episcopal General Convention of 1997 had passed a resolution apologizing to gay and lesbian Episcopalians and non-church members “for years of rejection and maltreatment by the Church.”
The Episcopal General Convention also approved a measure assuring local dioceses that they are “within the bounds” of the church in blessing same-sex unions. The measure was considered a compromise to appease the conservatives, who objected to a proposed measure to authorize a denomination-wide liturgy for such unions.
Poppe said the Burlington cathedral staff has already been performing same-sex union ceremonies or “blessings,” including that of Stan Baker and Peter Harrigan, lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit that resulted in the legal recognition of civil unions.
Margaret C. Porter hangs out and writes in rural Chittenden County.