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The ADA errs grievously in stating, "We did not choose this path." The plans to secede were made by knowledgeable leaders who knew only too well there would be a fight, and who knew the Diocese of Virginia would fight back.

The orthodox display an amazing blindness to the the responsibility they share for the creation of this situation.

When you have over ninety percent of the church in favor of moving its association away from the TEC to ANOTHER legitimate Anglican Association, how could anyone say that retaining the church is unfair? The few that disagreed have no trouble finding a TEC church in Washington--in fact, they can attend the National Cathedral in any Sunday!

Mr. Morgan is not well informed. Those parishes that had issues with Mr. Lee negotiated in good faith over a VERY long period of time using a detailed negotiation process, approved by Lee, to separate if approved by majority vote of each parish. At the last minute, Lee reneged, stating that the protocol wasn't "really" approved since staffers of the diocese hadn't approved it. What Lee, himself, thought was irrelevant, the protocol was void. Clergy freedom to preach the Gospel and to oppose TEC heresies is continually being challenged by overt and covert means. Choice? Yes, we had a choice. Either shut up and do what we were told to do no matter how wrong or remain faithful and find orthodox leadership elsewhere within the Anglican Communion.

With the introduction of non-Biblical doctrine into the church, this appears as a prelude to what lays ahead for some. The church is becoming more and more like the Laodiciean Church-- "neither hot nor cold," and standing for nothing.

I don't see the split as being over "orthodoxy," as if the mainline Episcopalians had suddenly denounced the Trinity. It's segregation from the "other," gay bashing, feeling self-righteous over one's bigotry, of coveting, breaking the Tenth Commandment, of the authority (and the real estate that goes with it), earned by an alleged "inferior," their neighbor. The dubiously self-proclaimed "orthodox" hardly deserve what has never been their private property.

We saw all this stuff before, when I was a kid, It was called "massive resistance." There are the same charges of hyper-sexuality and inherent immorality, same pleas to "protect" the family, the same threats of a horrible Godly smiting of the country if those evil liberals and "activist" judges, acting in some satanic conspiracy, have their way with civil rights. Once again, conservatives drag poor St. Paul's reputation down with them.

Forget Massive resistance, this is the same as the anti-abolition movement.

Except that "Homosexual" has been substituted for "Negro," there is nothing else new...except that maybe gays don't get their intelligence questioned as much.

One should remind CT of its own history (if memory serves), of doing nothing substantive about civil rights (while proclaiming itself against racism), of given an issue to "equal time" with segregationists, of fretting about the erosion of states' rights (the political theory of white privilege), of getting FBI Director Hoover to attack Martin Luther King Jr. in its pages (King was the most right, Hoover was the most wrong), of burying the announcement of MLK Jr's Nobel prize as deeply as humanly possible, and of the ungracious obituary after he was murdered.

At least at this time, CT doesn't proclaim itself to be something it's not. Ct may have self deluded itself that it wasn't really racist, when it's painfully obvious in hindsight, but there is no self-delusion going on in CT about defending inequality now.

The core issue in The Episcopal Church's upheaval is the nature of the Gospel and the authority of Scripture. As Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh has said, one side believes the Gospel is essentially a message of transformation, the other side believes it is a message of affirmation. Furthermore, one side believes the Bible is God's Word revealed (whether we like what it says or not), the other side believes it's merely a record of ancient people's experiences of God (so we can quote what feels nice and ignore what doesn't). The Episcopal Church cannot legislate the mind of God, which is what it has attempted, and many are resisting its collective megalomania.

In light of that reality, no one should be surprised at the Virginia case or the other cases like it sprouting up so many other places. Heresy breeds schism. Coercion breeds revolution. That is exactly what we see happening now. Until TEC ceases its coercions and repents of its heresies, the defections will surely continue.

By reading this post I got to know that fight for Christianity and fight in Christianity the author Tim Morgan have given very good statement about it and should be followed by every Christian and fight for there moral religion rights. Introduction of non-Biblical doctrine into the church is a good idea.

In the context of civil rights, equating "homosexual" with "negro" is the strategy of those who know that such action will resonate with the collective conscience, even if it defies objectivity. In the context of Christianity, equating those who diligently want to follow Scriptural teachings, in BOTH the old and new testaments, about sexuality with bigots is an attempt to dismiss them, to render them irrelevant. Why are they afraid to civilly engage these arguments and, instead, take to throwing rocks? These are political strategies rather than moral strategies....but, more importantly, they are inherently divisive and disingenuous. If you simply disagree with what is clear Scriptural and traditional Christian teaching, then have the intestinal fortitude to say so.

I've read the apologies for race slavery and race segregation. They are not different in kind than the current apologies for gay segregation. Besides, the pro-slavery conservatives definitely had the "proof texts" on their side, but it took a radical understanding of the Golden Rule to see beyond them, which from which sprouted the Reconstruction Amendments and other civil rights movements, such as unionism and women's suffrage...and now gay equality.

Gay men obviously don't want to sleep with a man as with a woman...gay men just don't usually want to sleep with a woman, even if there are plenty of women to sleep with. It's not "right." There can't be the possibility of body and soul love. It's kind of exploitive for a gay man to sleep with a woman. He's using her for selfish reasons, mere sex, or maybe proving that he's an "ex-gay," because there is little likelihood of the love that surpasses the love of a man for him. If you can find body and soul love in this rushing about world, you are to be envied, gay or straight.

The beloved Leviticus clobber verse also condemns sleeping with an equal, if you read it again. Men were equals, within their power hierarchies anyway, while the allegedly cursed to subservience women, women not owned by other men anyway, were for sleeping with.

If the gay civil rights movement is different, why do the anti-gay rights people use the same old claims of "literal interpretation," states' rights excuses, very familiar massive resistance tactics, the same scapegoating, salacious fantasies about their natures, unethical treats of terrible God smitings, and endless conspiracy theory fantasies? Yea, yea, it's the Illuminati again, with even a gay themed "Protocols of Zion" missive circulating.

CT saw massive resistance at work, and worried that anti-massive resistance tactics were eroding "states' rights," the political theory of white privilege. CT has learned the wrong lesson...of how effective the massive resistance tactics that it now cheers for against gays, delayed and corrupted the Civil Rights movement's successes.

Look at the religious right's revival of that Fifties deliberately racist "school choice" campaign. Let's get all taxpayers to pay for the segregated, supernatural born again (who just happen to be mostly white") race's segregation academies. People have forgotten the massive resistance campaign, I guess, but I haven't.

The Bible does not condemn homosexuality as a sin and abomination, but does condemn cultic prostitution and male-male rape by generally "straight" men, such as enslaving men by rape as in Genesis. It says nothing at all about being gay, which is a twentieth century founded community. The concept of "homosexuality" is Victorian and obsolete, which is why bigots use it in polite society. Only a few 20th Century Bible translations even use the word, erroniously. What other scientific words have been used in Bible translations? They're all wrong, if they exist.

The Bible does condemn some male-male sexual activity, and male-female sexual activity. There is probably an antipathy towards people of whom we would say today were probably gay, but as "gay" didn't exist anymore than say...Norwegians existed, they were what they were at that time. What the Bible does is explore monotheism in many various ways...and it's probably evil in an biblio-idolatrous way, if not read through the lens of the Golden Rule.

But, an antipathy in the Bible is no excuse for the anti-gay movement; it's not the same as condemning gays as an inferiorly moral people who need to do as conservatives demand, or else. conservatives have plenty of logs in their own eyes than gay's have specks in theirs.

Gays don't need to repent of, or to undergo a highly dubious "healing" of the non-existent "sin" of "homosexuality; anymore than Black people were "unnatural" in not happily accepting that they were to be subservience to the blessed "white" race by way of the curse of Ham, or of divinely ordered segregation because of the Tower of Babel story...or that the many, many slavery condoning verses were divine mandates acceptance of slavery forever, and for succession and Civil War. (One of my great-grandfathers was part of Sherman's army, by the way. did the "white" South ever thank him for help in ridding the nation of slaveholder tyranny?)

What the Bible does condemn as an abomination that religious conservatives conveniently overlook today, so busy self-righteously gay baiting and bashing, is usury. Where is the activism against predatory lending, endless debt credit card maneuvers, dubious bank fees and such? Apparently on the side of the modern day usurers, judging from the people evangelicals generally support in government. Where where they the last time the bankruptcy laws were being overhauled? It was the evil liberals who were against the usurers, and the alleged Bible believing conservatives who gave them what they wanted.

The racists of old believed black Africans were inferior because of inherited and immutable bodily characteristics. Homosexual relations are an activity engaged in, not a skin tone or hair texture. And this activity is explicitly defined as sinful in Holy Scripture.

Homosexuals have a difficult burden; nevertheless, they are called to chastity and true friendship, just like heterosexual singles.

That's so...incomplete. What does "immutable bodily characteristics" have to do with anti-gay activism? Discrimination isn't only about that. By the way, "homosexual" is now generally considered to be a pejorative word. It's simply rude to use a science word, especially an obsolete Victorian one, to label a community of people. People expect to be called by what their community consensus has agreed upon...it's "Gay," or as an expanded community of the LGBT, for the time being anyway. Consensus can change. "Homosexual" is thought to be pretty much only used by people of ill will towards Gay people. You wouldn't have that, now would you?

"Homosexual relations are an activity engaged in..." So what? The Bible does apparently have an antipathy towards same sex sexual activity, as much as one can understand it from today's understandings. But. we also know that it was thought by the ancients to be caused by "choosing" idolatry, This is not especially controversial.

"Calling" adults who happen to be "the other" to lifelong chastity and singleness is cruel beyond measure...not to mention that it will have a very high failure rate and probably encourage anomie and fatalism. Why would you do that? Paul encouraged lifelong chastity, but even he didn't call all Christians to it. Better to marry than burn in lust.. so lets legalize gay marriage and reduce the cruelty.

There is no reason to think that Gay people "choose" to be Gay. Same sex sexual attraction just happens, so what? We don't know why, but that's merely interesting. It's practicing the Golden Rule that makes for a moral person. Gays can practice that just as well as others, or not practice it just as evilly as others.

Clobber verses were exposed as morally and intellectually bankrupt with the death of Jim Crow. Why do evangelicals still use them like they did against Black people, and pretend that this time, it's somehow different? The only real difference is the labeling. It's still about greed, power and fear of the "other."

The racists of old often also believed that the Bible cursed Ham's African descendants to perpetual subservience to the blessed "white" race, and mandated segregation by the Tower of Babel story. There were a lot of other clobber verses, too, though most of us have conveniently forgotten them. These were claimed to be from an inerrant source, as literally interpreted, so slavery and segregation must be without error and God's will.

It was African descent, not really skin color that was the issue in America's caste system. Remember the "one drop rule?"

It's not skin color or hair texture that makes Black people Black people, but community. Gay people are Gay people because of community. You don't have to sleep with anyone to be Gay. You just have to be Gay, somehow, in whatever way you are.

Under the one drop rule...one didn't have to have dark skin or have a certain hair texture to be a "negro." Part of the abolitionist propaganda was of "white" looking slaves.

Gay people don't have any heavier a burden than any other people subject to campaigns of self-righteous vilification. You can start lifting some of your neighbor's burden by simply using the word "Gay" when you feel a need for community label.

I've spent too long on this, but it's been fun. Thank you.