Episcopal Gays Tell Bishop They Fear Intolerant Trend

Stunned by a declaration by their church’s bishops that homosexuality is incompatible with biblical morality, 250 gay and lesbian Episcopalians said Saturday they fear that the pronouncement signals growing intolerance in a denomination long known as one of the nation’s most liberal.

In their first face-to-face meeting with Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop Frederick H. Borsch since the Aug. 5 vote in Canterbury, England, by the world’s Anglican bishops, gay and lesbian church members here said they feel they are being excluded by the church, and can no longer in good conscience invite other gays and lesbians to join.

The resolution, approved on an overwhelming 526 to 70 vote with 45 abstentions, rejected “homosexual practice” as being incompatible with the Scriptures. It stated that the bishops could not sanction the blessing of same-sex unions or the ordination of non-celibate gay men and lesbians. It also declared that sex must be restricted to a man and a woman in marriage and that all others--both homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals--should remain abstinent.

While the resolution is advisory only and not binding on the independent self-governing churches within the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, including the U.S. Episcopal Church, it has nonetheless stirred protests from gays and lesbians.

The 250 Angelenos told Borsch they fear that the declaration will embolden conservatives and traditionalists in the denomination, who have been fighting any attempts to get the Episcopal Church to officially sanction the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians and develop rites for blessing same-gender unions.

By voicing their complaints and fears to Borsch, many felt as if they were speaking to a friend. Borsch is thought to be among the most liberal U.S. bishops when it comes to matters of human sexuality. Non-celibate gays have been ordained in the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal diocese, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. And while Borsch has not officially approved it, some of his priests have performed marriage-like ceremonies for gays and lesbians.

Borsch made it clear Saturday that he remains with them and repeatedly stressed God’s love for them. “I want to begin by saying how welcome you all are here with me in our cathedral, in our church, in our common life together,” he said. Borsch was among the minority of bishops voting against the resolution in Canterbury.

In a letter to gay and lesbian Christians, which Borsch read Saturday, he stressed that he wholly supports official teaching that human sexual expressions find their sanctified place in a traditional marriage between a woman and a man.

But he said many in the Episcopal Church, including himself, believe that sexuality “entrusted to another in a fully committed and mutually caring [same-sex] relationship may also know God’s blessing--and that some of these persons will rightly be called to ordained ministry.”

But Borsch made it clear that that is not the church’s present position, and that he cannot act alone.

“We may be a minority in the Anglican Communion. We have no authority--I have no authority--to change the so-called official teaching of the church. I understand that and I commend that teaching always to the church,” said Borsch.

Still, he reminded the group meeting at the Episcopal Cathedral Center of St. Paul in Echo Park, the 1908 conference of the world’s Anglican bishops condemned contraception. Eventually, the church reversed itself, Borsch said amid laughter from the audience.

The solution, Borsch said, is not to leave the church, but to invite more people into the church.

But several gay and lesbian priests, including the Rev. Marni Schneider, interim pastor at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Laguna Hills, said they were the targets last week of an anonymous hate letter sent by fax exhorting Episcopal clergy and parishes to “get rid” of gay priests and keep homosexuals out of seminaries and parishes.

There was no indication that the anonymous fax was even written by an Episcopalian. But those meeting Saturday said it could be an example of what the bishops’ resolution may unintentionally spawn.

“I take this very seriously,” Schneider said. “I have been able to deal with or focus on little else in the past few days. My partner, for the first time in our 12-year relationship, is afraid--for me, for us, for my priesthood. My 87-year-old mother isn’t sleeping well because she now fears that her daughter . . . may be shot and shot by someone from within the church we serve as priest.”

Connie Hornyak, a member of St. Wilfrid’s Church in Huntington Beach, told the group that after 25 years of marriage to a man and raising two adopted children, she said she now has a “wonderful [female] partner” accepted by her church and family. They had planned to have their union blessed in her parish.

“We will have the ceremony, but I no longer feel comfortable having it at church because of the [Canterbury] resolution on sexuality.

“I wish I could believe in the statement written on my T-shirt: ‘The Episcopal Church: Freedom to Love. Freedom to Choose.’ ”