The rector faces discipline after becoming the first clergyman to conduct a gay ‘marriage’ in an Anglican church. Last night Bishop of London, the Rt. Rev Richard Chartres, ordered an urgent inquiry into the ceremony, which was held in one of the capital’s oldest churches last month.
Writing in the much poorer world of 1899, Veblen argued that people spent lavishly on visible goods to prove that they were prosperous. To test this idea, the economists compared the spending patterns of people of the same race in different states—say, blacks in Alabama versus blacks in Massachusetts, or whites in South Carolina versus whites in California. Sure enough, all else being equal (including one’s own income), an individual spent more of his income on visible goods as his racial group’s income went down.
The service was conducted by the Reverend Martin Dudley, who told the BBC he had not broken any instructions issued by the bishops. “It wasn’t a gay church wedding, it was the blessing of two people who have contracted a civil partnership. … “They wanted more than I was able to give – they wanted something more like a wedding. I was not willing to do that because I believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”
The problem is that “dignity” is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. In a 2003, editorial, “Dignity is a Useless Concept”, bioethicist Ruth Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy–the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another.
The Most Rev Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, said that the ceremony was “blasphemous.” He called on Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take decisive action if the Anglican Church were not to “disintegrate”.
Move over, Project Runway. Patrick Boylan has been a fashion designer “his entire adult life,” says the Las Vegas Review Journal, but for the past decade or so he’s been creating designer vestments from Italian silk damasks and brocades that factor in a priest’s tastes, liturgical colors, and the church space they will be worn in.
In what is apparently the first public same-sex wedding in the Church of England, two gay priests were married at London’s oldest church, using a ritual taken substantially from the Book of Common Prayer.
Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press and NBC News Washington Bureau Chief, passed away yesterday afternoon in an apparent heart attack. The tributes are pouring in for this man who was clearly remarkable in his field but also spoke openly about his faith and how it informed how he did his job.
Yesterday was the final day of the presentations to the trial court convened to rule on charges of misconduct against Bishop Charles Bennison. The trial concluded with closing arguments and a not unexpected move by the defense to dismiss all charges. The verdict is expected in 30 days or less.
The Lead has been passed along an essay entitled “Our Journey Into the Future” that is reportedly to be presented to the Global Anglican Futures Convention (GAFCON) which occurs later this month in Jordan. This is a new document and not the paper published by SPREAD that appeared a few weeks ago.