Anglican Head Okays (Celibate) Gay Bishops

The head of the Anglican Church said that gay bishops are okay--as long as they refrain from sexual intimacy. The Sept. 25 comments, made by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to British newspaper The Times of London, were reported on by the Associated Press the same day.

"To put it very simply, there's no problem about a gay person who's a bishop," Williams told The Times of London. "It's about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe. So there's always a question about the personal life of the clergy."

Not everyone in the Anglican community agrees. In 2003, Gene Robinson was consecrated as a bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire. The global Anglican Church, which has 77 million members, was already under strain over differences regarding the role of gays in the faith and even the role that women should be allowed to play in the clergy. The idea of an openly gay man serving the church in the capacity of bishop drove some in the Anglican church to the point of breaking away; a global schism loomed.

Four years ago, the Anglican Church sought to avoid that schism by pursuing a moratorium on the elevation of gay clergy to the status of bishop. Despite that moratorium, however, the issue of whether gays belong in the church's clerical ranks continued to divide the faith; some North American churches broke away from the U.S. branch of the faith, the Episcopal Church, in order to ally themselves with anti-gay parishes in developing countries in Africa. Other American breakaway churches formed a parallel Episcopalian tradition, The Anglican Church in North America.

In 2008, conservative Anglicans declared that the schism was all but upon the church; that episode was one more in a string of demands from Anglicans seeking to convince North America's Episcopalians to "repent" for their support of GLBT members of the faith. Despite the global uproar and a renewed threat of schism, a lesbian cleric--Mary Glasspool--was confirmed as a suffragen (assistant) bishop in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has trod a somewhat winding path with respect to the question of gays being allowed to serve in clerical positions in the church. Williams is one of the faith's liberals, having supported equality in the church for gays and lesbians in the past. But for a time, Williams' speeches tacked rightward as he sought to reassure hardliners for whom no compromise is acceptable. For that rightward swerve, Williams offered his apologies in a Feb. 9 speech to the faith's General Synod.

"There are ways of speaking about the question that seem to ignore these human realities or to undervalue them," Williams told the Synod. "I have been criticized for doing just this and I am profoundly sorry for the carelessness that could give such an impression."

Williams spoke of the church's "sacrificial and exemplary priests," among whom are gay men, and also noted that the faith has many gay and lesbian adherents. But the archbishop did not abandon his attempts to keep the church intact, appealing to anti-gay hardliners to soften their stance and suggesting that the faith might adopt a "two-tiered" system that would relegate some dioceses to less than fully participating status. "It may be that the covenant creates a situation in which there are different levels of relationship between those claiming the name of Anglican," Williams told the Synod, which is the church's legislative body. "I don't at all want or relish this, but suspect that, without a major change of heart all round, it may be an unavoidable aspect of limiting the damage we are already doing to ourselves."

The archbishop had words for all sides in the debate, lamenting what he called "the reduction of Christian relationships to vicious polemic and stony-faced litigation" as the argument over gays and women has continued.

But Williams himself came in for criticism from GLBT equality advocates, who noted that despite his words on Sept. 25, he recently blocked the ordination of an openly gay candidate to the post of bishop. "Rowan Williams is inconsistent," declared British GLTB equality campaigner Peter Tatchell in a Sept. 26 press release. "Although he says he is willing to accept a gay celibate bishop, he blocked the appointment of the celibate gay cleric, Jeffrey John, as Bishop of Reading," added Tatchell.

Celibacy Not Enough for Partnered Clergy

John was also passed over in 2008. Though he has entered into a civil partnership with another man, Rev. Grant Holmes, the men's relationship is reportedly not sexual.

But Williams indicated in the interview with the Times of London that simply being partnered with another man was enough reason to pass John over a second time. Williams called the question of John becoming a bishop "a wound in the whole ministry from the start... making the judgment that the cost to the church overall was too great to be borne at that point," reported Episcopal Life Online on Sept. 27.

"The question about gay people is not about their dignity or the respect they deserve as gay people, it's a question about a particular choice of life, a partnership, and what the church has to say about that," Williams added.

"Before he became Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan supported gay inclusion and equality," Tatchell added. "Now he victimizes gay clergy like Jeffrey John and goes out of his way to retain within the Anglican Communion some of the most hateful Christian homophobes in the world. In his calculation, church unity is more important than the human rights of lesbian and gay people.

"Rowan is a deeply conflicted soul," Tatchell added. "He's torn between his kind, liberal inner heart and a seemingly heartless collusion with Anglican advocates of anti-gay prejudice and discrimination. It is two-faced for him to believe one thing in private and say something different in public. He is not being true to himself."

Addressing the issue of anti-gay elements within the Anglican tradition, Williams told the Times of London that the church needed to avoid schism despite disagreements on social issues such as equality for gay and lesbian members of the faith. ""We actually need each other, however much we dislike each other," Williams said of the fractious relationship between Anglicans who accept, and those who reject, gay people of faith.

The divisions within the Anglican community prompted the Roman Catholic Church to open its doors to disaffected Anglicans, with Pope Benedict XVI inviting Anglicans to convert. The Catholic church strictly denies GLBT equality on a number of fronts, including marriage equality for the laity and admission into seminary of openly gay candidates.

Moreover, although the Catholic Church holds that gays do not "choose" their sexual orientation, the church's teachings on homosexuality say that it is "inherently evil" for two persons of the same gender to share sexual intimacy. The church also condemns same-sex families, declaring that gays are "called" upon by God to be celibate.

One Anglican official, Canon Vinay Samuel, downplayed the entire issue, dismissing gays as too few in number to have such a major impact on the church overall and questioning whether homosexuality is an innate characteristic or a chosen mode of sexual conduct, reported The Christian Post in a Sept. 25 article.

"More than two decades of research in many fields has failed to confirm that gays are born that way," Samuel said. "So if someone believes strongly that they are gay... the church necessarily, clearly, firmly and consistently has to witness to the teaching on sexuality which it has received and which it is called to uphold. Also, it must require that its clergy uphold that teaching whatever their self understanding."

Samuel voiced criticism over the fact that so much energy and time had been consumed over the debate regarding gays, saying that the Western part of the global communion was "obsessed" with issues of sexuality. Moreover, Samuel questioned the devotion of gay people of faith. "The church's mission in God's world cannot be handicapped by the need to keep responding to the incessant demands of this particular segment of the professional class whose long-term commitment to the church has never been demonstrated," Samuel declared.