Are anti-sodomist Episcopalians entitled to free exercise of religion?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

– First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

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What if the ranking, or presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church were to announce his belief that there is no God, and that he had joined the Communist Party?

Should this departure from the faith allow him – as the head of a hierarchical church – to claim and confiscate all the church property of any diocese which refused to continue sending money to his national headquarters in New York – and /or announced their withdrawal from any further association with his denomination?

Surely disassociation from an atheist chief bishop would be a free exercise (and obligation) of religion, in opposing the denial of the existence of God.

This actually happened in the case of an Episcopal bishop, although he was not the presiding bishop, but the retired suffragan (assistant) bishop of Arkansas, the Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown.

This prelate, who married an enormously wealthy widow in the 1920s, not only denied the existence of God, but joined the Communist Party – which began publishing his denial-of-God writings worldwide.

The Episcopal House of Bishops put him on trial for heresy, not long after the Scopes Trial. His trial was gleefully covered by H.L. Mencken, who coined the term "Bad Bishop Brown."

Brown was found guilty and deposed (unfrocked). But at all future General Conventions, until he died, Bad Bishop Brown appeared wearing clericals and carrying a new lawsuit – all of which perished in summary judgment.

What if Brown had been bishop of Arkansas – or presiding bishop? And what if a majority of Episcopal bishops decided to tolerate him as they have tolerated sodomy, by allowing his atheism, (or his "alternate faith," as their press officer so cleverly euphemized it? )

Should all of the believers in God in the Arkansas diocese have been forced to vacate their church buildings, which cost of building and upkeep had been paid by believers in God – because this is a hierarchical church and the bishop has the right, if they do not pay diocesan assessments, to take over all their church property?

Is this tolerable under the First Amendment's free exercise of religion? Or isn't it really a deliberate denial of such free exercise?

All existent Episcopal churches were built and almost entirely paid for by local Christians, who belonged to a denomination which, at that time, upheld the strong and repeated biblical opposition to sodomy.

Now, a slim majority of this denomination's bishops have not only endorsed church blessing of sodomy by local option. A 62-45 vote approved the election of a sodomist to be bishop of New Hampshire.

Is it "free exercise of religion" to force all Episcopalians to tolerate this utter atrocity in moral theology? Or, if they don't continue paying the national church headquarters, to lose their church property?

This is a question that involves several billions of dollars worth of church property.

The top leadership of the Episcopal Church has provided such radical leadership that this denomination, which had 3.6 million members in 1966 has since lost 1.3 million members.

That loss of one-third of the denomination's entire membership took place before a slim majority of this denomination's leadership endorsed sodomy – which is still the nation's leading spreader of HIV, AIDS and syphilis.

A national meeting of Episcopal clergy and lay protesters has been called for Oct. 7-9 in one of the denomination's largest parishes, in the Dallas suburb of Plano.

They should recruit a number of top lawyers to probe the issue of free exercise of religion – and whether the conformance clause of each diocese to the national church is any stronger than the conformance clause of the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion and its overwhelming vote against sodomy at the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican-Episcopal bishops in the world.

In October, Bishop-elect Robinson plans to address a conference of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in Manchester, England. That led the Rev. David Banting, chairman of the British evangelical group Reform, to say Mr. Robinson's Manchester visit would "fuel the flames" of the scriptural argument over homosexuality among Anglicans.

He added: "Gene Robinson is a fraud in his teaching and his lifestyle and the Bible makes clear that the greatest danger to the church comes from within."

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, who recently spent six hours persuading a British homosexual priest to withdraw from becoming bishop of Reading, has called an emergency meeting of all 38 Anglican bishops and archbishops in the worldwide 75 million Anglican Communion for late October, just days before New Hampshire's Bishop-elect Robinson is scheduled to be consecrated.