BBC ON THIS DAY | 3 | 2003: Anglican church approves gay bishop

Yes, three years ago today +Gene Robinson was approved and confirmed by General Convention 2003 of The Episcopal Church, which was then acronymized as “ECUSA.” There’s been a lot of turbulent water under the bridge since then… a LOT. But at the time, I thought it was a good step forward, and I still do.

Gay clergy and lay leadership helped me in my personal formation as a better Christian (aw! that’s such an Episcopal usage, “formation”). I never found Biblical literalism helpful in any way: it’s a theology of fear and shame, not of joy and compassion. I weighed it, and found it wanting. I can’t articulate my point of view as well as Padre Mambo, though.

Best wishes, hopes, and prayers to +Gene, who only wants to be known as “the good bishop of New Hampshire,” and not merely “the gay bishop from New Hampshire.”

By the way, I hate the picture the BeebNews site used of +Gene. It’s the peevish one that always seems to show up in online articles that disapprove of him. They never, never use the one where he’s smiling happily while wearing his mitre.

Side note: according to a sidecar item, on September 4, 1956, Britain’s Wolfenden Report was published, saying “homosexuality should not be a crime.” It would be another ten years before this commission report would become law in Britain, and it would not become law in Scotland until 1980.

Still. Nearly fifty years ago, the unthinkable was being thought and debated. How many more decades or centuries before it becomes a non-issue?