In a nation where the best rapper is now white, the best golfer is black, the biggest basketball player is Chinese, there is now also some new “morality” in New Hampshire.
The state’s Episcopalians, who are scheduled to elect a new bishop on June 2, have named five candidates, including the Rev. Canon Gene Robinson, who is currently serving as chaplain to the retiring bishop, the Rt. Rev. Doug Theuner.
Canon Robinson, in his autobiography, reports the following:
“I answered God’s call to acknowledge myself as a gay man. My wife and I, in order to keep our wedding vow to honor [each other] in the name of God, made the decision to let each other go. We returned to the Church where our marriage had begun, and in the context of the Eucharist, released each other from our wedding vows, asked each other’s forgiveness, cried a lot, pledged ourselves to the joint raising of our children, and shared the Body and Blood of Christ.
“Risking the loss of my children and ministry was the biggest risk I had ever taken, but it left me with two unshakable things: my integrity and my God.”
(This despite the fact that far from being unfrocked, he could be promoted.)
If New Hampshire’s Episcopalians think this is integrity, and believe that God really approves of clergy-wife-desertion, after adulterous buggery, then it must be asked whether such astounding condonation would be extended in equity to all other alternative sexual orientations.
Suppose that the Rev. Canon Robinson’s autobiography had confessed to the desertion of his wife and children because:
- “I’ve fallen in love and obtained a Vermont Civil Union with a fellow man who loves to beat me – while I absolutely love being beaten. I therefore have my integrity and my God – and my nightly whippings.”
- “I am married to four other women, who live in Southern Utah. Since King Solomon had many more wives than this, I have my integrity and my God.”
- “My wife, whom I left, was really my sister. But since the Ptolemys of Egypt practiced incest, Cleopatra who was married to her brother, incest is nothing new, and has been engaged in and tolerated in high places. Therefore, I have my integrity and my God.”
- “I have fallen in love with our Great Dane bitch Hilda, who – I can assure you – is a freely consenting beast. While the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention report that male homosexuality is by far the leading spreader of HIV, AIDS and now syphilis, there is no such report that this lethal disease-spreading is done by bestiality, therefore, I have my integrity and my God.”
