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From the Episcopal Sun Times:
Bishop is 'only heterosexual in Anglican Communion'
Vermont, Wednesday. Bishop Ed Robinson, the recently elected Bishop of New Herefordshire, is in fact the only member of the Anglican Church anywhere in the world who is not tacitly acknowledged as gay.
The news has caused considerable consternation among the congregation, who thought they were electing a conventionally homosexual bishop.
"It's very disturbing," said Sister Mary Agnes of the Convent of St. Catharine and St. Joan in Matahuxee, Illinois, "because clearly it raises moral issues. We've always been comfortable with our spiritual superiors being men because, since they were all gay, there could never be any problems of misconduct with the novices. Now all that's gone out the window, we'll probably have to put locks on the cell doors in case he runs amok."
Supporters of Bishop Robinson decried her stance as prejudiced. "Just because he's not gay," said Father Michael Keneally of Loomis, Michigan, "that doesn't mean he's some kind of sexual dynamo who's going to rush around putting his hands where they're not wanted."
But conservative clergy and laiety from around the world expressed their dismay. "This man is part of a culture of permissive sexual relations and perversion expressly forbidden in scripture," asserted Bishop Paul Babatunde of Nigeria. "These people habitually engage in sexual relations without the sacrament of marriage or even the intention to form a loving relationship. The whole heterosexual culture is rife with violence, promiscuity, and Sin. I can't think of anything more likely to sunder the Church."
"Any man who has truck with women will eventually fall into the way of Sin," said Dr. Nguen O'Hearn of the High Anglican Mission. "Women are a test of our resolve. Christ surrounded himself with men, and he loved only these men. At no time in the Bible does Christ throw himself into the arms of a woman and copulate with her. He espoused the company of men, and his Earthly successors should do the same. Men should eat of each other's bodies, as it is written. Anything else is frankly repellent."
Bishop Robinson had this to say: "I don't really understand the fuss this has caused. The Church's obsession with sex has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I do what I do, that's between me and God. I'd never force myself on anyone who didn't want me, and I'm in a committed, long term relationship. It seems very strange to me that anyone actually cares what my sexuality is. There are so many things which are frankly more important to the spiritual health of the world than who I'm stupping."
The debate continues. |
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