This will certainly not do any good in healing the divisions within the Episcopal Church -- or the worldwide Anglican community.

Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal prelate whose consecration led conservatives to split from the church, said in an interview on Thursday that he and his partner of 20 years were planning a civil union ceremony to be held in his home church in the diocese of New Hampshire in June.

Bishop Robinson said that by scheduling the ceremony for June, he did not intend to further inflame conservatives just before the Anglican Communion gathers in August in Cambridge, England, for the Lambeth Conference, which happens only once every 10 years.

He planned his civil union for June, he said, because he wanted to provide some legal protection to his partner and his children before he left for England for the conference. Bishop Robinson has received death threats, and he wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments at his consecration in 2003.

“We could have, I suppose, just gone to the town clerk and had that signed,” he said, “but, you know, I’m a religious person, and every major event in my life has been marked with some kind of liturgy and giving thanks to God.”

Robinson, whose selection as bishop despite living in flagrant disregard of biblical standards of morality, has been a key flash-point in the conflict between traditionalists and modernists within Anglicanism -- to the point that the Archbishop of Canterbury excluded Robinson from the gathering of Anglican bishops this summer. This deliberately provocative move on Robinson's part -- having what amounts to a gay marriage ceremony in one of his churches -- will only serve to bring that issue to a head. It certainly serves a a sign that the Episcopal Church is out of step with the overwhelming consensus of worldwide Anglicanism. Will it be the cause of the final separation of the two?

Posted by: Greg at 10:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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