Gay Bishops & Human Rights

Adelphoi,

For your consideration...a discussion starter

On why dioceses accept Bishops & priests who are active homosexually ("gay").

Within the North ("West") of the Anglican Communion we have seen in the very recent past a statement from the Primates that same-sex partnerships are not morally acceptable for clergy & laity and also the appointment of two bishops (in C of E & ECUSA) who are or have been in such partnerships.

Why do the Dioceses in New Hampshire USA and Reading/Oxford in the UK make such appointments of gay priests as bishops?

We could say that the Church is deeply affected by the Zeitgeist (which is true), that the Church is deeply penetrated by secular standards (which is true), that the Church is seeking to be inclusive and tolerant (which is true), and that the Church is subject to falling to the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil (which is true).

But why do seemingly decent people in the Diocese of Oxford, UK and in the Diocese of New Hampshire, USA not vocally and with their pocketbooks/checks oppose these innovations? Why do few decent people oppose them?

If there is one general reason I think that it is this. The theme of human rights has become for the West the general language of morality. So it is assumed that I can do whatever I feel is right for me unless it seriously harms another, and no one should interfere.

If we buy into the popular understanding of human rights (and such is assumed in the language of general culture) then we have to concede that other people - even in the church - have the right to be and to do what we may think (by God's revealed standards) is wrong, even sinful. Christian doctrine is thereby adjusted to accommodate human rights and reasons (tolerance, fairness, compassion etc) are given..

Homosexually active persons [and their supporters] have brilliantly incorporated their demands into the assumptions and language of human rights with the result that many good and decent people feel it is wrong for them to oppose those rights - for in this culture one does not oppose the human rights of another. To do so is the sin of sins. (The same kind of reasoning applies to the rights of couples who are heterosexual to live together as partners be they previously divorced or not - of seven weddings I am scheduled to officiate at this summer in semi-rural England all seven couples are living together as partners.)

For the Church to recover her previous moral doctrine and reasoning She needs to come to terms with the way that human rights have entered into her very soul and sort out where human rights begin and end and where God's law is in force! Merely to condemn the appointment of gay bishops or the permission to bless gay couples and to cite Scripture is not enough; it merely misses the target.

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The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge;
Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large of The Prayer Book Society of America.