Ordination and Institution of New Rector at St. Anna's

I attended Bill Terry's ordination to the priesthood and institution as rector of St. Anna's Sunday evening. It was awfully good to see the folks at St. Anna's again for a brief respite from my one year banishment. The service was wonderful. I was very proud of "my kids," who received awards from Bishop Jenkins for serving as "Bishop's Acolytes."

I enjoyed my third Sunday at St. Timothy's, La Place

I enjoyed being supply priest at St. Timothy's in La Place Sunday. I have one more Sunday with them. On Sunday August 3, I go to St. Matthew's in Houma for three services: 8:00am, 10:00am and 5:00pm. I'll hae to get up a 4:00am to get there on time. Whew!!

At least we're not much worse than Egypt in civil rights for Gays!!

The New York Times reported in an article in today's paper that 11 homosexuals were aquitted of sinning

Sid came over tonight

More Rants from the Right on Same-sex Marriage

I can't recall where I read the description of a mentally ill person as having a mind full of eels and coat hangers, but it describes exactly what the inside of Maggie Gallagher's mind must look like. I'm referring of course to her piece, The Stakes: Why we need marriage. (Tattled from Andrew Sullivan's Blog site.) Does she actually get paid for publicly displaying dementia? Is it a new kind of reality show in print? It's indescribable. You'll just have to read it for yourself.

Patterns of Corruption and Uranium Quicksand

Two items in todays New York Times, an editorial, "Uranium Quicksand" (which I can't seem to get a working link to) and an opinion article by Nicholas Krugman Pattern of Corruption," go on at length about the present administration's mendacity concerning the Uranium/Niger flap. But they don't go far enough.

I don't understand why everyone seems just now to realize that the Bush bunch are liars. They lied about his Harken Oil stock sale (he didn't know as a member of the boards auditing committee that the value of the stock was about to drop?) they lied about how he got rich when he sold the Texas Rangers. They lied to get him elected governor of Texas, they lied about his record as governor (tell us again how he "helped" kids get an education when he opposed the bill that accomplished it.) They lied during the 2000 campaign (what evidence is there of "Compassionate Conservatism" in his track record so far? They lied about the real purpose of the huge tax cuts and the size of the deficit? (Is there any evidence that those who received the bulk of the money have actually "invested it to create new jobs? How much and where, and where are the jobs."

The tragedy is that the Republicans tried for 8 years to invalidate Bill Clinton's election with scarcely anything to go on and finally, because of his puerile shortcomings, got him for trying to weasel out of the consequences, but all the work to find him and Hillary guilty of anything important (Like lying to get us into a preemptive war) fizzled.

The Congress (neither Reps, or Dems, have got the guts to keep after the liars that now rule from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave) won't do anything. It's up to the media to keep the heat on. Please, don't fail us now!!

Anne and Brenda Bost's Wedding

The Episcopal Bishop of Bethlehem (PA) is in the process of writing a book on same-sex blessings. The first chapter describes Anne and Brenda Bost's wedding last September at St. Luke's in the Fields Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village NYC. Anne and Brenda are the daughters of Walter Bost, a friend at St. Anna's Episcopal Church in New Orleans.

Homophobia is alive and well in the Diocese of Texas

The following article was sent to me by my friend Dwight in Texas. The bishops of Texas have a long history of homophobia, which I have personally felt the brunt of during my 12 years as a priest in that wilderness.

If you're interested check my essay on the Religious Conservatives .
42Ak *** Houston Chronicle Thursday, June 12, 2003

Area clergy to vote
against gay bishop

Anglican leaders fear division in church

By RICHARD VARA
Houston Chronicle Religion Editor
Episcopal Diocese of Texas Bishops
Claude E, Payne and Don A.
Wimberly said Wednesday they plan
to vote against confirmation of an
openly gay priest as bishop of New
Hampshire.
"We have consistently opposed
ordination of noncelibate
homosexuals, and we oppose the
confirmation of the New Hampshire
election," the bishops said in a
statement.
Saturday's election of the Rev. V.
Gene Robinson by the New
Hampshire diocese has created a
firestorm in the 2.3 million- member
Episcopal Church in the United
States, as well as in the worldwide
Anglican Communion.
Bishops-elect are usually confirmed
by a majority of standing
committees of the nearly 100 dio-

ceses in the U.S. church. But be-

cause Robinson's election fell within
120 days of the church's biennial
General Convention, he must be
approved by the House of Bishops
and the House of Deputies.
Wimberly said he and Payne issued
the statement after church members
and other bishops called diocesan
headquarters in Houston for their
reaction to Robinson's election.
Payne will retire in June but
will be a voting member at the July
30 convention in Minneapolis.
Wimberly will succeed Payne as
diocese leader.

Their statement criticized
Robinson’s election because "it
simultaneously funnels the
creative energy of the faithful
away from mission into internal
conflict. The issues of gay
ordination and the blessing of
same-sex unions have embroiled
the Episcopal Church in a more
than 20-year debate between
traditionalists and liberals. It has
also caused a growing rift
between more progressive
Western churches and the more
conservative churches of Asia,
Africa and South America.
The Rev. Laurens "Larry"
Hall, rector of St. John the
Divine Episcopal Church in
River Oaks, said he agrees with
Payne and Wemberly’s
decision.
Robinson's election "initiates a
confrontation with the world
communion," Hall said. "So for
the first time in history, I think
the Anglican Communion will
be divided."
In 1998, a worldwide meeting
of Anglican bishops in
Canterbury, England, approved
a stance describing
homosexuality as incompatible
with Scripture.
However, Archbishop of Can-
terbury Rowan Williams and
U.S. Presiding Bishop Frank
Griswold have ordained openly
gay priests.

New Chapters of Eye of the Beholder are Posted

You can download EOB Chapters 1-4,7 (Becky's story) and Chapter 5, which starts Gunther's story.
Click to Download

New Chapters of Eye of the Beholderare Posted

A Challenge to the People of Iraq

Do Iraqis have what it takes to be free?

As the United States continues to pay for Iraqi freedom with American lives, do the people of Iraq themselves have what it takes to achieve freedom in a liberal democracy? A people has seldom become a free society as the result of a gift from another nation. Not many of the former colonies of Imperial nations have been able to maintain their freedoms, perhaps because their freedom came too easily.

Now that the casualties begin to rise among the Iraqis who are cooperating with the Coalition, will the Iraqi people have the will and the courage to pursue freedom, or will they succumb to fear and intimidation? Will they continue to serve as interpreters and put their families at risk? Will they continue to train to enforce the law if they risk death on the day they graduate from police training? Will they support the establishment of civil government? Will they cooperate in establishing and supporting educational institutions? Will they be able to protect the infrastructure being built for them?

I believe most Americans support our presence in Iraq whether or not we like the way we got there, but I think our staying in Iraq through the long haul will depend on how willing Iraqi people are to take the same risks Americans are taking on their behalf.

President Bush made a foolhardy challenge to those attacking our troops by telling them to: "Bring it on!" Perhaps the challenge that needs to be made now is for Mr. Bush to challenge the Iraqi people to "Step up to the plate and fight for your own freedom." If the people of Iraq aren't willing to stand up to those who are trying to return the country to tyranny, why should American troops continue to die there?

Now We're Talking Gay Rights!!!

A New York Times article in today's paper tells about a former Army lieutenant colonel who has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the military sodomy statute. This will really get the right-wing religious homophobes seeing red>.

Leonard Pitts' Recent Column.

In his column "Timid Media tiptoe back into the 1050s" Leonard Pitts writes about the dilemma journalists have in deciding whether or not to print all they know if doing so might be harmful to the public interests. He says, in part: ". . .you could say that the media outlet that refuses to cooperate with government in a time of crisis sacrifices national security on the altar of journalistic principle. . . [and] the flip side of that argument. . .is that the editor or producer who too readily surrenders jounalistic prepogatives fails in his or her primary mission: to inform the public without fear or favor. Some . . . wonder if that's not precisely what has begun to happen."

Mr. Pitss didn't ask for a vote, but here's mine anyway. I vote for journalistic principle every time. To assume that most Americans can not decide between what the media report and what the government claims is insulting. If it's true that we can't make our own judgements about what to believe, the game is lost already.

If, from time to time the media end up with egg-on-face disease, I trust them to admit it a lot sooner than the government. How long has it taken for the Bush administration to admit that Saddam's attempt to buy uranium in Nigeria was a fraud? I'm not even sure they've really admitted it yet. How can you tell with so much buck passing going on? Answer? It's up to the media to report what they know, especially if it differs from what government says.

Mr. Pitts writes a great column, which I read in the New Orleans Times Picayune.

Canadians Still Leading the Pack in the Anglican Communion

An article in the New York Times reported today that in Vancouver, British Columbia, The Right Reverend Michael Ingham, Anglican bishop of the greater Vancouver area is quoted as saying about the resistance of the religious right to blessing same-sex unions:
"Conservative Protestants and evangelicals who have vilified the pope for years have now found themselves in alliance with a conservative pope on issues of sexual morality," he said. "What you are seeing across the world is a realignment of global religion where the forces of conservatism are finding more cause with each other across religious boundaries than within their own religious traditions."

The conservatives, he says, want to roll back the 18th century Enlightenment "because it brought rationalism and individualism into the Western world." He adds with a giggle, "The fact that it delivered us from superstition and church imperialism is forgotten."

Once he begins throwing darts at the right, there is no stopping. "Conservatives say you cannot pick and choose, but that's exactly what they do because the same texts that condemn homosexuality condemn the eating of shellfish," he said. "I haven't heard any conservative churchman campaign against shellfish in the last few years."

You Go, Bishop Ingham!!

Big Brother is Here

There is news from the AP this morning that the Defence Department is developing a system to monitor activity "in foreign countries" that can record make, model, license number, face of driver, etc. with face recognition software to provide a permanent record of everything the system observes. It's called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is only supposed to be used "in foreign countries." The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies for combatting terrorism and fighting wars in the 21st century.

There is probably no way to keep DARPA from being used eventually in the U.S., but in the mean time we need to get rid of lots of "culture war" laws (such as the Texas Sodomy Law) or else we'll see law enforcement having a fieldday rounding up marijuana smokers and other minor sorts of combatants in the culture wars.

My Novel Eye of the Beholder is being serialized

I have decided to serialize my novel Eye of the Beholder on a new blog site glynnsbooks. It may take awhile to get the formatting right, but I'm working on it. There's also a "tip jar" with a modest (voluntary) donation of $1.00 per chapter as you read them. Total chapters, about 29.