Calif. diocese votes to split with Episcopal Church over role of gays and lesbians

[XemaSab]

Source: Associated Press

An Episcopal diocese in central California voted Saturday to split with the national denomination over disagreements about the role of gays and lesbians in the church.

Clergy and lay members of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin voted 173-22 at their annual convention to remove all references to the national church from the diocese's constitution, said the Rev. Van McCalister, a diocesan spokesman.

The Fresno-based congregation is the first full diocese to secede because of a conservative-liberal rift that began decades ago and is now focused on whether the Bible condemns gay relationships.

"We have leadership in the Episcopal Church that has drastically and radically changed directions," McCalister said. "They have pulled the rug out from under us. They've started teaching something very different, something very new and novel, and it's impossible for us to follow a leadership that has so drastically reinvented itself."



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/12/06/national/a124517S60.DTL&tsp=1

---

This diocese also refuses to ordain women, FWIW.

Real knuckle-draggers. :eyes:

[dbackjon]

1. Knuckle draggers indeed

They will all end up in hell, anyways, for their hatred (assuming Hell actually exists).

[Joe Bacon]

57. This is what Scaife and Ahmanson have been financing.

Both of those assholes have poured millions of dollars into financing conservative takeovers of all the major denominations.

[xchrom]

2. good -- just remember the pension money and the property stay with the church. nt

[AndyTiedye]

5. So the Freepers Will Have to Find Their Own Church

and the more open-minded Episcopalians will get their church back.

[AndyTiedye]

3. That's Freepertown

Yep. Fresno really is the home of "Free Republic".

[XemaSab]

4. It's also the home of K-Fed.

Coincidence? No. :(

[Critters2]

7. But it's the whole diocese that voted.

They just happened to be meeting in Fresno.

[xchrom]

21. but that doesn't mean they get the pension money or the property --

that belongs to the epsicopal church usa.

it's fine if they want to act out their hatred -- but they will have to pay a price.

[flamingyouth]

22. There's a parish here where the separatists took over the church.

The ECUSA loyalists (or "real Episcopalians," as I like to call them) are forced to meet in the chapel.

We have a new Bishop and he's made that situation his top priority.

[xchrom]

25. yeah -- i know the organizaton -- blech -- so who is your new bishop?

do you like him/her?

[flamingyouth]

29. Greg Rickel.

So far, yeah, we really do. He was nominated by our parish, actually. The first time we met him we ended up in an extended conversation about tequila, so yeah, he seems cool. :D

[xchrom]

30. yay! and he knows about tequila? -- better than sherry. -- glad to hear it. nt

[Le Taz Hot]

45. And also the home of Audra McDonald

and the late, great William Saroyan. But please, by all means, don't let me get in the way of your geographical elitism. Carry on.

[AndyTiedye]

53. Hopefully It is Home of Enough Non-Bigoted Episcopalians to Form a New Diocese

The diocese voted to secede, but does that mean all Episcopalians in that geographical area secede with them? I don't think so.
The church property does not belong to the diocese, and the ECUSA would not likely turn it over to them after they seceded.
Will a more open-minded diocese form to replace the one that seceded and make use of those facilities?

[Le Taz Hot]

55. Well, being a died-in-the-wool

heathen from way back I really have no idea what any of the outposts (my husband's name for churches) are up to around here. ;-) I did see a new, VERY large Unitarian Church being built in the north part of town which is leaps and bounds larger than their current building and I know that that particular outpost seems to welcome everyone. When I was working locally with the Stonewall group I know a lot of the members went there.

I just get so sick of the Pavlovian responses of people when they hear the word "Fresno." It completely ignores all the good work LOTS and LOTS of people do here.

[mnhtnbb]

6. For the Bible Tells Me So--new documentary

maybe someone should send this church a copy of the DVD. There are progressive churches all over the country screening this award-winning documentary because it's getting limited play in theatres.
I think there's a list of screening dates/locations on the website.

http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/index2.htm

[flamingyouth]

20. Haven't seen that yet, but several fellow parishioners recommended it.

[QC]

8. Their bishop is a self-loathing closet queen. Seriously.

This is all a tedious--if enormously expensive and destructive--psychodrama in which the Right Reverend John-David Schofield gets to prove that he's not really a homo after all.

Shades of Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover.

Speaking as a loyal Episcopalian, I am happy to see Schofield and his kind go. Now faithful Episcopalians in that diocese can have a church again.

[peterriskind]

52. re. Their bishop is a self-loathing closet queen. Seriously.

How do you know JD Schofield is a self-loathing closet queen?
(Journalist inquiry)

[Tektonik]

63. All people who hate gays must be gays themselves!!!

Woo homosexuals hate their own kind! :eyes:

[TrogL]

68. Just those who have chosen homophobia as a career

eg. fundamentalists ministers, right-wing pundits

[Tektonik]

69. damn thanks for the info

I'm going to have to call Tucker for a night on the town :eyes:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. That is the heart...

of Howard Ahmenson country, who along with Richard Viguerie and Dickie Scaife, have been funding the Episcopal Church schism and the one in The Methodist Church. That's where these people are getting the money that gives them the courage. It is nothing more than a plan to destroy the more liberal and tolerant churches.

[XemaSab]

10. There are some very progressive Methodists in the area.

They're considered heretics by most of the folks. :rofl:

[xmas74]

14. I'm a Methodist

and right now we're considered heretics in my town too. The Baptists started that one (again) but this time they're throwing their stones via LTTEs.

[nealmhughes]

41. Scaife is funding the secessionists? I don't keep up with the news, evidently.

I was three years on the vestry, lay reader and our lay delgate to annual convention back in the Dioscese of Long Island. Now I am happy to sing loudly and sit at 3/4 of the way back on the RH side.
I do make the sign of the cross, which is about 50/50 in our parish. We have some old school Calvinists from the mink stole brigade who appear aghast when people genuflect, even a perfunctary knee bend upon entering the pew. I always make the deepest bow I can in their direction as the Cross passes! Just to remind 'em that we have one prayerbook.


One of the funniest sights I've ever seen was my foster son going to the small Anglo-Catholic parish across the river for Xmas Eve Midnight Mass, with full choir, bells and smells, English priest, etc. As the choir came down from the loft to take Communion, he whispered to me: "Geez, it looks like half the gay guys in town you hang out with are in this church tonight." To which I could only reply, "the other half are out of town for Xmas, probably on retreat with the Franciscans!"

Well good luck San Joaquin. You gonna need it.

With his own mouth he spoke it,
And by his hands he broke it,
And whatever he meant,
I accpt it.
And so by faith I take it.

One has to love Anglican theology.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

49. Scaife, Ahmenson and Viguerie.

They are providing the funds to the secessionists. The information is out there.

[annabanana]

48. The names attached to that money are very familiar to DUers.

They constitute the "usual suspects".

[hunter]

11. Why don't they just become Catholics?

They'd fit right in at some of the Central Valley Churches I've been to.

Too many Mexicans, maybe?

[QC]

12. Well, they claim to be Anglo-Catholic, but they are actually holy rollers.

I doubt the local Catholics would respond too favorably when their new members begin convulsing on the floor and frothing at the mouth.

For an example of what goes on in Fresno, see this link: http://tinyurl.com/2om7r3

[flamingyouth]

15. They've just joined a very traditional Anglican diocese.

One that frowns upon even doing the Sign of the Cross.

Yeah, good luck with all that. And good riddance to them. Thanks for that link.

(Our Episcopal Church is an Anglo-Catholic parish, btw.)

[QC]

26. Yep, Southern Cone is probably the least Anglican province in the world.

They were founded by an ultracalvinist, anti-Catholic missionary society, and not much has changed since--Oliver Cromwell would probably fit in just fine there.

Even though the province covers most of South America, they have fewer than 25,000 communicants (the entire Diocese of Bolivia consists of four parishes), which might explain their interest in picking up a few lucrative North American properties.

[xchrom]

23. if you want to see some anglo-catholicism -- come to san francisco

with some very active gay parishoners.

oh. my. god. -- it is really something to behold.

i love it.

it was the first time i had ever seen a parade of the Host -- held proudly high by this wonderful very butch lesbian in one of those black and white choir boy get ups.

fabulous.

[QC]

28. Anglo-Catholicism has always been very, very, very gay,

which makes all this horror at Gene Robinson very weird indeed.

As I said earlier, I think the situation in San Joaquin has a lot to do with the bishop's own, um, issues. He's Roy Cohn in a purple shirt.

[TrogL]

61. OK, that explains it

I'm the organist at an Anglo-Catholic church.

[nealmhughes]

51. My God, they have a "prophet." We're satisfied with a bishop, pesiding bishop and primate

in the Dioscese of Alabama.

[hunter]

54. Oh my goodness.

They must simply like the name "Anglo."

[MasonJar]

13. It is only one diocese in California. The Episcopal Church has stood tall

for what is right. I am proud to be an Episcopalian.

[flamingyouth]

18. Thank you.

I am proud as well. :applause:

[Fenris]

19. Yes indeed.

I'm a convert, and proud of it.

[xchrom]

24. me too. nt

[Rowdyboy]

27. Any ideas on why the Fresno area diocese is so conservative?

Maybe something in the water? I'm a proud openly gay member of what I considered a conservative diocese in Mississippi and I've never heard much support for leaving the greater church over doctrinal issues. While there is a some serious discontent over the whole gay/women thing I can't understand how Mississippians remain apparently comfortable in the Episcopal communion while even a few Californians secede. My stereotypes of Californians, Mississippians and Episcopalians are simultaneously crumbling.

Lord have mercy...

[QC]

31. The shismatic stuff is mostly clergy driven.

Fundamentalist bishops appoint only fundamentalist priests, who then preach sermons on The Gay Agenda and The Evils of The Heretical Episcopal Church every Sunday. People who don't want to hear that crap drift away.

Voila! A fundamentalist takeover.

You have an excellent bishop in Mississippi. I know Duncan well, as he was my parish priest for six years. He is an honorable conservative, loyal to the Church, and a thoroughly decent man. San Joaquin, in contrast, has a bishop with some very serious issues about his own sexuality and a boundless thirst for power. Thus the very different situations in the two dioceses.

Interestingly, Duncan has had problems with the Africans poaching in his diocese for years, even though he does not ordain gay priests or allow gay marriages. That proves to me that all this has much to do with power and little to do with The Gays.

[Rowdyboy]

37. A fundamentalist California Episcopal bishop.....what a long strange trip its been....

Thanks for the kind words about Duncan. He's worked hard to hold the church together and has done an excellent job. While I was disappointed in his vote against Bishop Robinson, I understand that he was only voting his convictions and, as you say, is a thoroughly decent man. I went to college with his brother, Lloyd who is the editor of the Tupelo Journal.

How strange that I can hear my local parish priest preach supporting committed gay relationships in rural Canton Mississippi while an entire California diocese splits from the church. Life is so much more complex than stereotypes suggest.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Could it be that in Mississippi, the Episcopalians function as the

"un-fundamentalists," so that more liberal people gravitate toward them?

[XemaSab]

40. It's a two-way street

The pastor of the church in Oakhurst chose to apply in that diocese because he liked the bishop's style. :puke:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Another happy convert

I used to be Lutheran, but they've gotten so "family oriented" and suburban in the past twenty years that I as an older single "city mouse" no longer feel at home.

I know what you mean about Anglo-Catholics being heavily gay. I attended an Anglo-Catholic parish for part of the time I was in graduate school, and I swear, half the congregation and, for part of the time, all the clergy, were gay, and the parishioners, at least, were not closeted.

That's what makes the whole schism thing so odd.

[Sultana]

16. Well, they won't be missed nt

[flamingyouth]

17. My favorite line: "I know what it feels like to be a minority."

Yes, I'm sure you do, conservative white guy. :nopity:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_92524_ENG_HTM.htm

[JerseygirlCT]

32. Time for the PB to cut their bishop loose

He'd been warned. I think this is evidence enough of abandonment.

I feel badly for those in the diocese who are still Episcopalians, though. I hope another bishop will be named asap for them.

[QC]

33. He gets two months to recant.

Then they can depose him. Of course, he will just say that TEC has no dominion over him. The real question is whether he will still get to go to Lambeth. After all, Rowan Williams did not invite the deposed Bishop of Recife, who was taken in by the Coneheads, so precedent would suggest that Schofield will have to stay in Fresno, which would be a devastating blow to such a preening, strutting peacock as he.

I wish they could just fly out to Fresno tonight and change all the locks, but it doesn't work that way.

[JerseygirlCT]

34. I know. There will be lawsuits galore, and plenty of

deliberations before anything conclusive happens. But I do think it will all happen. Thankfully, I don't think our PB is anything like the ABC.

[QC]

35. The ABC will probably issue in a week or two some ambiguous,

highly nuanced statement that will make things worse. After all, that's what he does.

When I consider what utter disasters the past two ABCs have been, I start to think that it's time for TEC to go it alone. How can any institution survive being led by George Carey and then Rowan Williams? We should form our own communion and put Desmond Tutu at the head of it.

[JerseygirlCT]

36. Tutu would certainly be terrific! nt

[progressivebydesign]

39. The fact that the San Joaquin Valley is actually in California is just a technicality..

It would do much better in the bible belt.

I worked for a children's home in LA that was started and supported by the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese. Totally different attitude than that Diocese in Fresno... just so different. (the LA Diocese and churches were just wonderfully nice).

[XemaSab]

42. Not to mention the Sacramento Valley, the mountains, and um... the desert

:P

Basically as soon as you get on the east side of the coast range, it's a different state. :P

[hunter]

43. Being Anti-Catholic has always been a large part of the Protestant identity here.

In my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation the last thing you wanted to be as a respectable citizen of the upper classes was Irish or Catholic, most especially if you had such in your family tree.

For some the drive to move out West was fueled by the desire to shed a family identity. When you stepped off the ship in San Francisco nobody had to know you were the bastard son of an Irish Catholic kitchen maid and a respected member of the Protestant Establishment. You went to a Protestant Church that was not Irish and not Catholic, and by God's Grace you were no longer either.

As painful as it is today for some of the people involved, watching the right wing elements of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches taking shelter together in the same dark hole of intolerance and bigotry amuses me. People whose parents, grandparents, and great grandparents would have hated and despised one another suddenly find themselves united by their fears and their prejudices. Issues like gay marriage really do threaten their world order.

[annm4peace]

44. ex-patriot of Fresno. Explains whats up with Fresno

I was born and raised in Fresno. I moved from there about 5 years ago.
Fresno for the past 30 years has been controlled by Fundamentalist and neo-Cons.

Freepers are nothing.. they are just a hate filled group and did not cause the "good ol' boy" "corrupt" "fundamentalist-neo-cons". They are just a part of it.. they are sheep.

Think of the analogies; Frog in a boiling pot of water.

To say Fresno is just a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobia, backward, hatefilled... etc

Is like saying the same thing about the United States because of who is in power right now.

About 70 years ago, the dust-bowl happened and the fundamentalist okies, arkies, texans,, descended on the Central Valley.. and in the past 40 years. their children and grandchildren slowly became in power. How did this happen? It was part of how it happened to the rest of the country.
Through the control of the churches..

Also in the 80's when Reagan let media consolidate, we lost balanced news... a Corporate Conservative group bought of the radio stations, tv stations and news paper. The paper's Union was the 1st to go. Then by the 90's there was only one talk radio station that was hate radio KMJ.

There radio wave reached the whole valley. 2hrs to the north, 3 to the south, and 2 hrs either east and west.
The people of Fresno have been manipulated for 40 years, it is easy to do that to poor people.
Think of 1984, and Fahrenheit 911. Also Dylan's song about a Pawn, (I don't' remember the title).

*** Growing up all my friends were liberal, a diverse backgrounds. My high school Fresno High as also very liberal. IN the 80's we had openly gay students, in fact it was almost cool to be gay.


Just a couple years ago, a trans gender at Roosevelt High became Homecoming Queen.


It has always baffled me how the "Good o'l Boys" got in office. It wasn't till I moved away to Minneapolis that I could understand it. I started to see what happened to Fresno 20 years ago start to happen here. Thankfully they are having a much harder battle here. Fresno unfortunately has a majority that is actually liberal but they are apathetic and also afraid to speak out, and hard to get involved. **

This was evident when "Peace Fresno" was started protesting. It scared the crap out of the "Good o'l Boys" so much that they 1st had the hate KMJ radio announce we were out there, then the Freepers came to protest us, then one of the Council person Jerry Duncan, would go on KMJ radio and say how we were anti-american, Terrorist lovers, etc. Then he would go to the corner that the Freepers were on and shake their hands.
*** Then the big one ***** They sent a deputy Sheriff to infiltrate us, he was there 6 months before he was killed in a motorcycle accident ** He was with the Joint Terrorist Task Force.

With all the gang violence, killings, etc.. the Sheriff's biggest threat was a Peace group.
Peace Fresno was featured in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911.
It took 3 weeks before the Fresno Bee newspaper, reported of Peace Fresno being spied on.. Even though a press release and press conference was given a week after the group found out the Sheriff had been spying on Peace Fresno. http://www.peacefresno.org/

There has been and continues to be a very hard working progressive group in fresno and thankfully through all this the one progressive paper has sustained.
http://www.fresnoalliance.com/hom/ ** I often post the "attacks on the Homeless"

Those who poured money into getting Bush elected are the same people who Poured money into Fresno to make it Conservative. Whether it was through the Fundamentalist (now Big Box) Churches, through the media, and/or through the local Government.


Fresno's Progressives needed and continue to need help from those in other areas to turn the tide in the Central Valley. Whether it is financially, like donating to the Progressive groups, or bringing big groups down to protest with the locals so more locals feel safe to protest, or for social justice, and Campaigning groups come down to do weekend or week long training to make changes in Fresno.

To find out more of the Progressives in Fresno check out:
http://www.fresnoalliance.com/

[hunter]

50. It has everything to do with the money and control of the media...

The right wing machine works by channeling public money into campaign contributions. Sometimes it is astonishingly transparent -- an example would be the false front companies in San Diego that turned Defense Department contracts directly into campaign contributions and bribes for Republican politicians.

And they do everything in their power to fragment the unity of their opposition. Working people who have everything in common -- white, black, asian, hispanic... are turned against one another by blatant manipulations of the media and legal system.

[kineneb]

65. "immigrants" from the south

Remember "The Grapes of Wrath" and the Dust Bowl? Many of those folks came out west to do farm work in the valleys of California. They stayed, and kept the attitudes they brought along.

And before the Civil War, there were a number of Southern sympathizers that settled areas in CA.

[Le Taz Hot]

46. Just in case you think all of Fresno's residents

are of this ilk, here:

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid45296.asp

Seems I was too slow. It didn't take long before the geographical elites slithered out from under their rocks letting us know that the ONLY thing Fresno has is FreeReublic and Kevin Federline. Apparently the rest of the town is void of anything. At all. Period. Oh, yes, and I was told recently, Fresno stinks. :eyes:

[XemaSab]

47. Sorry.

I lived in Oakhurst for a year and a half, and my family's from Fresno. Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space, is from Fresno. The Fresno poets, including Phil Levine and Larry Levis, are some of the greatest modern poets around. Gary Soto, William Saroyan, and Cher are also notable Fresnans.

I know there are good folks there, but I'm not down with Fresno, by and large. :(

[boricua79]

56. who would have thought

I thought it was the other way around. I thought this diocese was more liberal than the national leadership, being that they were in California.

Oh well, so be it. I'm sure they won't be missed.

[QC]

58. California is not a liberal state.

A few places on the coast are liberal, but inland California is Mississippi with slightly better roads.

For example, a friend of mine was fired a few years ago from a public school in the Sacramento Valley for assigning dirty books--by such noted pornographers as Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Faulkner. The whole state is not Berkeley.

I speak as someone who has spent a good bit of time in California and loves the place, by the way.

[boricua79]

60. wow...

if you don't teach Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Faulkner, what the hell are you teaching for literature?

This country is so going down the toilet.

[LeftyMom]

64. Better roads?

Last I heard, we had the dubious honor of having the worst roads in the country.

Take that Mississippi! :patriot:

[QC]

59. Latest News: Canterbury Disavows San Joaquin Secession

<I>"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has not in any way endorsed the actions of the Primate of the Southern Cone, Bishop Gregory Venables, in his welcoming of dioceses, such as San Joaquin in the Episcopal Church, to become part of his province in South America," a spokesman for the Anglican Communion said.</I>

This is from the ABC's communications director.

Of course, Schofield's big selling point to his diocese has been the notion that Rowan Williams himself had approved their plan. This really puts the people of that diocese in a lurch, but then, Schofield has been mistreating them for years, so what's new about that?

[TrogL]

62. Let's just have the schism and get it over with

I was at a party with a number of Anglicans and we ended up talking about divisions within the local churches. The evangelicals within each congregation are demanding a "third service" just for them when they can break out the guitars for the honour band. Other congregations are alternating traditional services with evangelical ones. It's driving people away.

It's time for the traditional Anglicans to toss the evangelicals out on their ear. Let them go join the Baptist church where they belong.

[kineneb]

66. I hear you

I played keyboard for a while at a local Methodist Church. They were into too many "soft, fuzzy" modern hymns and such. I have always felt that the music of the church should be uplifting, rather that bowing down to secular idioms. I guess I am prejudiced by my studies in music history... there is something about Renaissance church music that gets to me...

I have kind of enjoyed the "smells and bells" Anglican services I have attended (unfortunately, many of them were also funerals). The only local parish is 45 minutes away, so I doubt I will ever attend.

... guess I will stay a Buddhist and hang out with the liberal-traditional Christians.

[QC]

67. My parish used to have a happyclappy service at 10:30,

but then the fundamentalists who attended it left in a huff because they felt that our priest was not teaching enough hellfire and damnation.

It was such a relief when they departed, kinda like finally getting a bad tooth pulled after it has tormented you for years.

Now we back to plain ole Rite 1 and Rite 2, chanted, with bells. Like real Anglicans.

[TrogL]

71. The Anglican Journal showed up today

Lead article "Bishops hold line on moratorium - Church leaders worry about possible schism"

Don Harvey, a retired bishop from Newfoundland and Labrador has been travelling the country stirring up trouble.

More power to him.