I was all set for a big, long, bitchy blog about the Church of England last week and you know what happened ? They only went and did the right thing on women Bishops, which shut me up good and proper.
I suspected at the time that it wouldn't be long before something happened to upset me again.
Today the openly gay Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, was speaking at a church in West London and was heckled by a protester. His sermon was on big world problems and how tragic it was that the Anglican church concentrated so much of their energy on sexuality when there was so much more important issue they should be addressing.
I'll not get into the arguments from both sides, I just want to make one point.
26 Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords. This means that one Christian sect is absurdly over-represented in our second House of Parliament, but I'll let that pass for now.
My point is that access to the House of Lords should not be restricted by racial, gender, sexual or other affiliation. As the Church of England is providing 26 members of the House they should, if they want to represent the population as a whole, be providing 13 women and an absolute minimum of 3 gay people.
So, if the Church of England is determined to remain a homophobic members-club, that's a matter for them. But the Lords should represent society as a whole. Homophobic members-clubs should not be given any representation there.
I do look forward to seeing the first Woman Bishop taking her seat in the Lords - I do however suspect it'll be long after I'm gone.
3 comments:
Woah mi laddo. They may have done the right thing on paper, but the reality is even worse than not having done the right thing on paper. As you say, we'll all be long dead before we see a female bishop.
As my commenter Maesti's father says, who is a Rev, the C of E are "a bit thick".
The 26 bishops are the top 5 important ones plus the 21 longest serving. So even if a woman bishop were appointed tomorrow, she wouldn't make the House of Lords for at least 30 years
Rule by longevity -- that's what we need. Love it.
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