Episcopalians in Southland Reject Stand on Gays

In a divided vote underscoring strains within the church over homosexuality, Southern California Episcopalians on Saturday rejected a controversial stand by the world’s Anglican bishops declaring homosexual practice to be incompatible with biblical morality.

The vote by delegates to the annual convention of the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese marked one of the first official reactions by rank-and-file Episcopalians in the United States to the overwhelming 526-70 vote last August in Canterbury, England. The Episcopal Church is part of the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

But even as delegates here adopted their own resolution declaring that they would not accept the Canterbury resolution, it was clear that they too are split over homosexuality, an issue that has dogged mainline Protestant churches for years. Lay delegates to the convention approved the resolution turning down the Canterbury resolution on a 203-105 vote. Several hundred members of the clergy, who voted by a show of hands, were more supportive of rejecting the controversial Canterbury resolution.

Church officials were aware of a similar action being taken by only one other diocese in the country, the one that includes Boston. “God calls some homosexual people to live together in committed relationships, and the church does bless and ordain” homosexual members, that resolution said.

For 10 years, some priests in the Los Angeles diocese have been blessing same-sex unions without waiting for approval from the national church. Likewise, bishops here have ordained non-celibate gay men and lesbians.

Backers of the move to reject any suggestion that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture said the world’s Anglican bishops had attempted to impose a false unity on the church.

“They tried to enforce unity where it did not exist,” said the Rev. Jim Newman of St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Mar Vista. He said the Canterbury resolution amounted to the “selective use of Scripture to exclude.”

Saturday’s action came after a night of politicking by traditionalists and gay rights advocates--and an unexpectedly strong declaration by the diocese’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Borsch, disavowing the Anglican bishops’ resolution.

Until now, Borsch has been reluctant to directly challenge the action by other bishops during their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury. Borsch was one of the 70 bishops who voted against the resolution. He has since sought to try to focus the attention of discouraged gays and lesbians and their supporters on what he saw as the resolution’s positive aspects--that homosexuals are loved by God and that all baptised persons regardless of their sexual orientation are full members of the church.

But in an address to delegates Friday night, Borsch strongly challenged the resolution. He said the majority of bishops who declared homosexuality incompatible with Scripture were uninformed and lacking in any pastoral experience with gay and lesbian members of their church. He said Anglican bishops overall had not handled the controversy well.

They “seemed to lose sight of the human beings involved,” Borsch said. “Largely lost sight of were the pastoral dimensions of what was being said. The tone of some of the debate seemed to speak with a voice of cultural and inter-religious fears influenced by a kind of church politics, new, I believe, to Lambeth Conferences.”

And, in one of his most unequivocal criticisms of his fellow bishops, Borsch said: “We would be remiss not to listen with care to our brother and sister bishops from around the world, but in my view they would need to gain considerably more pastoral experience and engage in more thoughtful study and Christian conversations before I could regard them as well informed and wholly guided by the [Holy] Spirit on this issue.”

Borsch’s statement, which drew prolonged applause, surprised gay rights advocates in the church as well as others in the 85,000-member diocese, which is composed of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and Santa Barbara.

Mary June Nestler, dean of the Episcopal Theology School at Claremont, said Borsch’s remarks were “far beyond what I expected him to say. He did not play it safe today and I expected him to.” She added that the tenor of the bishop’s remarks caught her off guard. “I think he found something today and he shocked me,” she said.

Traditionalists and those opposed to the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate gay men and lesbians, however, were not pleased. Several said they believed that Borsch had insulted bishops in Third World countries by suggesting they needed to be better educated.

The Rev. Darry Lee of St. Mark’s Church, Glendale, said he was “horribly upset” by Borsch’s remarks. “They were condescending and racist,” Lee said.

Cathie Young, a member of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach, added, “I was disappointed. For those of us who have spent some time in the [Third World] and have met some of the bishops, we know their heart for the authenticity of the Scriptures,” she said.

After brief floor debate, the conference rejected a proposed amendment that would have softened the language of the resolution rejecting the Lambeth resolution. The amendment would have said that many but not all members of the diocese rejected the contention that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture.

Backers of the amendment said it was intended to avoid a bitter floor fight and a renewal of division within the diocese. Without the amendment, said the Rev. Jerome Kahler of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Ventura, the resolution amounted to “the devil’s work.”