"This is just another revisionist attempt to use anything to undermine the orthodox position of the church and spread the agenda of inclusiveness," said the Right Rev. Peter Beckwith, the conservative bishop of Springfield, Ill.====
This from a Washington Post feature by Dan Burke wherein Maryland Bishop Gene Sutton and other black bishops at the Lambeth Conference said "the use of Scripture to reject homosexuality in the Anglican Communion evokes previous eras' biblically based arguments in support of slavery and racism."
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My, my, my! How dare +Gene Sutton have an opinion on racism ... clearly such things fall within in the purview of straight white guys like Beckwith to define and to challenge in his never-ending struggle against ... what does he call it again??? "The agenda of inclusiveness."
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3 comments:
And this is what it is all about, isn't it.
"Bishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi also disavowed comparisons between abolition and gay rights . . . "Homosexuality is not about rights, it's about how God created you," he said."
Anyone with eyes to see and a brain to help the eyes see critically knows that if there is ANY generalization to make about "God's plan" or "how God created [us]", it is that God created us to be different from one another. There is no more common trait in humankind than diversity.
But beyond this, the appalling thing about the Bishop's statement, which reflects a common thread in the God-as-homophobe argument, is its absolute refusal to acknowledge even the possibility that we ARE as God created us; that the authors of Leviticus, Paul, or others whose written views constitute the Bible as we know it just might have gotten it wrong as they got so many other things wrong. The comment also reflects a blind refusal to acknowledge or even hear the stories we have been telling them - that many of us were clearly NOT created to relate sexually to others of the opposite gender. We have tried. It just doesn't work. So, either you believe God made a mistake or you believe that people who purport to speak for God about matters of human sexuality and to say that the understandings of two millienia or more ago still have validity.
I really question whether there is any room for accommodation with people like the Bishop beyond saying we will just agree to disagree and hope that, one day, the kind of ignorance he displays will be seen for what it is - just as the view that the earth is the center of the universe and is flat is.
What John MEANT to say was:
"So, either you believe God made a mistake or you believe that people who purport to speak for God about matters of human sexuality and to say that the understandings of two millienia or more ago still have validity DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT." (Addenda in caps).
OK, so I can't proof my own stuff. So sue me!
"The powerful do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."
Thucydides
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