Bravo! Well said. I was appalled at the most recent response of the Church of Uganda to the pending legislation, especially the sentence stating that homosexuality is "not a human right."
This is not the kind of thinking to which the Church should ever be "accountable." As long as this is the mind of any part of the Church, no Anglican Covenant. No way, no time, no how.

The Ugandan attack on human rights is echoed in the Roman Catholic attack on them as well, especially with respect to the glbt community. We have to affirm that some of the inalienable rights in which we believe apply here: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for example.

The discussion of Human Rights will expand from here as the religiously intolerant seek to impose their views over common rights observed by the international community. It ia particularly appalling that many who gained freedoms based on rights theory, now oppose it because they believe power has shifted into their hands.

I particularly like how they (the bishops of the CofSA) are lifting this beyond the immediacy of the Ugandan legislation---as critical as it is---to their deep concern "about the violent language used against the gay community across Sub-Saharan Africa."

TBTG for the SA bishops! :-D

JC Fisher

The Province of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa comprises Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha.

Here's a news article just up:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hABJrXDxPNG5CHDvQzpssKxccVpQD9DSPC580

"Police in Malawi say they have arrested a man in what they describe as a sweep against homosexuals....Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Culture whose Parliament has condemned Malawi's "harassment" of gays, is now visiting Malawi. It is not clear if she will address the issue as she interacts with Malawian officials."

This section of Pierre Whalon’s initial article intrigues me:

“It seems to me that the Holy Trinity had had enough of the “don’t ask–don’t tell” policy that was de facto on the church-wide level up until 2003, and therefore the Spirit introduced us all to the new Bishop of New Hampshire. Now we had to deal with the reality of what we doing, and defend it. Not by some appeal to psychology or endocrinology or genetics, or other contested, ephemeral, and finally dehumanizing “scientific answers,” but some honest-to-God theology, a reasoned argument based firmly on Scripture and the other, lesser resources of the Tradition.”

Intentionally or not, Whalon, in this section, has put his finger on the bottleneck. As I read this, I was reminded of an old question: which comes first, theoria or praxis? The best answer is that that the two really are part of the legendary hermeneutical circle. I take Whalon’s argument to be a reminder of that.

However, I think it is also helpful to remember, as we engage the hermeneutical circle, that the issues around the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the church, is not primarily, or in the first instance, a theological problem. The issue of human and civil rights, and contemporary insight into sexual orientation, are not really found in Scripture, in the same way, that despite a vibrant theology of God as creator, the notion of modern cosmology is absent form scripture. Human rights are not about, nor do they require, revelation. Human rights are based on a growing evolution about what is intrinsic to human being. Rather than searching the scripture and tradition in order to discover and explain what rights gay and lesbian people may have, we might more profitably attempt to explain how new practices with regard to blessings and ordinations, build common ground with a growing positive social consensus about the human person. It would help, if we would actually, not only talk to, but also learn from, people in the human and social sciences.

–Rod Gillis