The homophobic African Anglican bishops and their right-wing
supporters in America have suspended the American Episcopal Church from
participation in meetings and policy discussions within the Anglican Communion
for three years over the issue of gay marriage. It is amazing that with all of Africa’s serious
problems – Ebola and other endemic diseases, poverty, illiteracy, civil war, brutal
governments, and ethnic cleansings – the conservative African bishops feel
their most important issue, the issue on which they have to take a stand, is
the sexual preferences of a few people.
Well, perhaps the America Church ought not to be part of the
Anglican Communion if that is what the Anglican Communion stands for. I’m proud that the American Church is liberal
in its views, and ordains women and blesses gay unions, and refuses to back
down from those positions. The world has moved on, and if the conservative Anglicans
in Africa (and America) want to hold on to old, outmoded, illiberal views, they
can go join ISIS, which in fact holds much the same views.
And by the way, the conservative views on these issues are
in fact really much more aligned with the fundamentalist Muslims in ISIS then
they would probably like to admit. Both Islam and Christianity arose in the
Middle East centuries ago, and both carry in their scriptures some of the
illiberal traditions of those distant Middle Eastern cultures, many of which still
persist in the Middle East today. Foremost among those illiberal traditions are
the subjugation of women and homophobia. So perhaps those conservative bishops
ought to ponder the implications of the fact that they agree with ISIS on some
of the very issues that the rest of the world finds most repellent in ISIS.
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