Update, The Nation has chimed in with Holy Homophobia by Richard Kim, and Ed Kilgore of the political blog New Donkey shares his views as well.
That stinging headline appeared on Howard Meyerson’s column today in The Washington Post.
An excerpt regarding the decison by Bishop Martyn Minns and his followers to join forces with Archbishop Peter Akinola and the Church of Nigeria:
“Explaining the decision to leave the American church, Vicki Robb, a Fairfax parishioner and Alexandria public relations exec, told The Post’s Bill Turque and Michelle Boorstein that the church’s leftward drift has made it “kind of embarrassing when you tell people that you’re Episcopal.” It must be a relief to finally have an archbishop who doesn’t pussyfoot around when gays threaten to dine in public.
The alliance of the Fairfax Phobics with Archbishop Restaurant Monitor is just the latest chapter in the global revolt against modernity and equality and, more specifically, in the formation of the Orthodox International. The OI unites frequently fundamentalist believers of often opposed faiths in common fear and loathing of challenges to ancient tribal norms.”
Meanwhile, The Economist has this:
The breakaway congregations are putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishoprics in the developing world. One would-be parent is a Nigerian bishop, Peter Akinola, who runs the largest province in the Anglican communion, and who has pronounced views on homosexuality: he supports legislation that would make it illegal for gays to form associations, read gay literature or even eat together. There are also suitors from Rwanda, Uganda and Bolivia.
And on the Guardian’s blog, comment is free, Bruce Bawer writes: For years now, antigay Episcopal leaders have been cultivating ties with people like that Nigerian bishop with an eye to eventually jumping ship. Now these two Virginia congregations have taken the plunge, placing themselves under the authority of Archbishop Peter Akinola, primate of the Church of Nigeria – a man who not only opposes gay bishops but enthusiastically supports a proposal by his nation’s government to outlaw meetings of homosexuals. In doing so, these parishes – whose histories are wrapped up in the history of the founding of American democracy – have betrayed both their American and their Anglican roots.
For though they beat their breasts over their fealty to “traditional values,” these secessionists have demonstrated quite dramatically that they don’t know the first thing about Anglican tradition – which from the beginning has called on the faithful to focus on what brings them together, not on what divides them, and whose glory is not a book of discipline but a book of common prayer. They call themselves orthodox, but in an Anglican context they’re anything but. They thunder that their denomination has been taken over by gays and their supporters; the fact is that third-world Anglicanism has largely fallen under the sway of reactionary demagogues who have left Anglican traditions and values far behind.