http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid=1700&viewarticle=1&searchtype=all
Newly elected American Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first
female head of an Anglican denomination anywhere in the world
believes homosexuality is not a sin. More than a million people in
Sao Paulo celebrate the Brazilian city's tenth Gay Pride parade. In
the US, the Pentagon is said to have classified homosexual
behaviour as a mental disorder and listed it alongside mental
retardation and alcoholism.
Homosexuality not sinful: first female leader of the US Episcopal
Church
Not only does she believe that
homosexuality is not a sin, she also believes that it is a gift
from God. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected last
weekend as the head of the 2.3 million member US Episcopal Church
the American branch of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected last weekend as the
head of the 2.3 million member US Episcopal Church the American
branch of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.
She is the first woman to head any denomination in the Anglican
Communion worldwide, 30 years after the church first allowed women
to become priests. As presiding bishop, she will represent the
church in meetings with other top Anglican officials and other
leaders of faith.
The Bishop of Nevada said in a weekend interview with CNN that she
felt gay men and lesbians were created by God to love people of the
same sex.
I believe that God creates us with
different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a
different collection of things that challenge us and things that
give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us. Said the
52-year-old who holds degrees in divinity as well as in
oceanography and biology.
"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward
other people of the same gender and some people come into this
world with affections directed at people of the other
gender."
She defended her position claiming the
Bibles passages relating to homosexuality are written in a
different historical context, "The Bible has a great deal to teach
us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so
much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of
clothes to wear - there are rules in the Bible about those that we
don't observe today.
"The Bible tells us about how to treat
other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of
Jesus, to include the unincluded."
The 77 million-strong Worldwide Anglican Communion the network of
Anglican churches in English-speaking nations around the globe
insists the US church "repent" for appointing Gene Robinson, the
openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, in 2003.
For conservative Episcopalians, the selection was bad news as some
fear that her appointment could widen divisions in the Anglican
Church and tension is already high since the appointment of Bishop
Robinson. Curently, only the United States, Canada and New Zealand
have female bishops.
