To the Editor:
Re: “Denying Rights in Nigeria” (editorial, March 8):
I am embarrassed to learn that an archbishop of the Anglican Communion, the Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, is a major supporter of the odious Nigerian legislation designed to deny basic human rights to gay and lesbian people.
What deeply saddens me is that he is a well-regarded leader to many of the most conservative Episcopalians in this country. But what puzzles me is the apparent willingness of the archbishop of Canterbury and other primates of the Anglican Communion to appease him in his insistence that the Episcopal Church’s welcome of gay and lesbian people is somehow un-Christian.
As your editorial rightly concludes, this proposed legislation, and his support of it, are a chilling reminder of the profound dangers to which bigotry can open us.
Supine complicity with such a view, as you rightly stated, “sets a treacherous example for the region and the world.”
(Rt. Rev.) Mark S. Sisk
New York, March 9, 2007
The writer is bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
3 comments:
Just when I had concluded that not one of our illustrous members of the HOB had a backbone, along comes +Sisk. Finally!!! I applaud him and I wonder where the rest of the HOB are hiding? Where's the outrage and the outcries against Akinola? It took the Human Rights Watch group to warn the world of these violations. We, in the Episcopal Church, have been acutely aware of Akinola's stance on homosexuals for a long time now and the silence from our church has been deafening. Silence in this case is a sin. It's Lent, people. Time to repent from the sin of silence. Silence here equals death!
An American priest (now inhibited in ECUSA) from one of the churches that has allied with Bp Akinola defended him in a recent forum with seminarians, saying that the proposed legislation Akinola supports was actually an improvement upon the old law approach that was more harsh.
The mind boggles.
Of course, he also talked about how Jesus had "healed" homosexuals in his parish through reparative therapy, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
God bless +Sisk.
I wonder where Mr. Sisk has been all these months when the nadir of decency and integrity ran his mouth about gays in Nigeria and elsewhere...none other than Brother Akinola. Come on, Mark, let's wake up and smell the odors that permeate the Church.
What's Lent got to do with it, Mr. Fred? Just another time when the anti-sex Christianists beat their breasts and try to act pious...all, of course, decried by the sage Jesus, at least we're told that in the NT. What's a mother to do?
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