The Diocese of Colorado has issued their Task Force report on issues relating to gay clergy and same-gender blessings. ***Dave has some thoughts on the matter.
Closer to home, this same issue done got raised in Sunday’s sermon. It was only Father Ted’s third sermon of his incumbency, and already hackles were raised and worms uncanned. Tonight there was a Bishop’s Committee meeting, and the issue got added to the agenda for discussion.
I got there at… 6:40 (ran late as usual after work). I got out of there at… 8:50. Stopped off for Thai takeout on my way home. Nothing like a little Pad Thai Goong to settle the jangled nerves and empty tummy.
Yeah, kind of long. There’s plenty of support for Fr. Ted and for his partner Mark to just be themselves, because we certainly knew going in that who they were and what we could expect. As in, “Duh! We’ve done the gay clergy thing before, most people had more problems getting over the woman at the altar thing than the fact they were gay!”
However, the objection, which came from an unexpected quarter, was to seeing 2 men kiss during the service during the Peace (as previously blogged).
It seems that the basis of the objection was that the children would be upset.
First of all… oh, hell. FIRST of all, glass houses. SECOND of all, judge not (that’s on me for the snarky “glass houses” remark). We’re both stumped on the “kissing” thing, because neither of us can remember if our previous priest made any bones about it. Honestly, I thought it had been going on and I never bothered to notice, because it was no big deal. In my first Episcopal parish, there were at least two gay couples who were regularly part of the choir or altar party (not clergy) who used to exchange little smooches, and nobody said anything at all (and there were one or two very conservative members in that church, too).
Perhaps because it’s a clergy person, it’s harder for the objector to reconcile, but it’s very odd.
It was decided that there would be some kind of private meeting (the dreaded usage of “dialogue” as a verb cropped up) where it is hoped that the concerned party will be able to come around to accepting things somehow.
My good friend Katie was mighty incensed on this, and we had an enjoyable few minutes’ private chat afterwards. She admitted she was not the right person to “dialogue” with the objecting person, because she’d be inclined to give them some kind of Christian smack upside the head.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. We both deplore the objection and hope the objector…um, finds a way to deal with the situation.
Because, frankly, asking two committed parents to refrain from exchanging the Peace and showing affection for each other in front of children is not a very good example now, is it?
I did think it was not very politic of Fr. Ted to raise the issue so forcefully in the sermon, but on the other hand, better to get it out in the open now rather than fester for later.
Apparently there were other people out in the general congregation that felt uncomfortable, but I hope this will all turn out to be surmountable rather than insurmountable.
Oh, and it appears that we’re going to make an effort to get more of us to attend Diocesan Convention, which is something we’ve always been very slack on in previous years. Fr. Ted seemed, ah, very gently insistent that he expected a number of us to attend. Illinois has always been a little subdued as a diocese on the gay clergy/gay marriage issue, so I don’t have any idea how big a deal it is in the rest of Northern Illinois. I do know that southern Illinois (diocese of Quincy) is very much on the “against” side of the issue. Guess I’ll learn more about it after the convention.
