Fringe Conservative Group launches "petition" to try 35 Episcopal bishops for heresy, rails against Integrity

Fringe Conservative Group launches "petition" to try 35 Episcopal bishops for heresy, rails against Integrity @ Gay Viewpoint Blog

 

A fringe conservative lay group has launched a petition drive to try 35 bishops for heresy based on their involvement in the consecration of Gene Robinson as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. Both Bishop Robinson and the church’s current presiding bishop are included in their “target group.”

It is not known if the group, Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC), will also launch a petition aimed at disciplining the three bishops who defy church law by refusing to ordain women or employ women priests in their dioceses. Ironically, LEAC’s anti-Episcopal petition started almost 30 years to the day after the first woman was ordained as an Episcopal priest in the United States.

LEAC claims Bishop Robinson’s ordination is part of the Episcopal Church’s “reckless pursuit of a gay agenda that is hostile to Scripture and to the historic order of the church.” Interestingly, none of the LGBT Episcopal leaders we contacted have a copy of the “gay agenda” touted by LEAC.

In fact, the term “gay agenda” gained notoriety among the far right wing after a heretofore unknown evangelical preacher made a video using that title and sold them for a profit. It has been cited repeatedly in conservative fund raising appeals and political ads. To date, no LGBT group has published a “gay agenda” yet the term continues to be used by right wing groups who never seem to have a copy of the document, raising the possibility that the “gay agenda” is the new “Willie Horton” of the right “win at any cost” wing.

LEAC claims their petitions will be given to bishops who voted against Bishop Robinson 10 of whom would then be needed to start the church’s indictment procedures.

Whether there are 10 bishops willing to support LEAC’s heresy trails remains to be seen. Any effort by self-proclaimed “orthodox” Epsicopals to attack mainstream Episcopal Bishops – who are in a majority – could open the door to a plethora of similar actions aimed at disciplining conservative bishops who have refused to obey cannon law and ordain or employ women priests as well as those who have worked to split their diocese from the national church.

“The homosexual thrust is real, aggressive and largely influenced by a shadow gay-lesbian-transgender hierarchy of bishops, priests and laypeople,” claims LEAC. “The most persistent campaigner for accelerating the gay agenda in the Episcopal church is Integrity, a 30-year-old homosexual activist organization believed to comprise much less than one per cent of the national church.” LEAC, however, is unable to prove that it’s membership includes a number of Episcopalians that represents a tenth of Integrity’s membership. LEAC has yet to publish a membership list or to identify their donor(s).

LEAC also predicts an “outright division” of US Episcopal Church following the 2006 general convention in Columbus, Ohio, this June. It is unclear why, if LEAV believes their own predication, and if LEAC and its supporters really plan to leave this spring, they are now starting a petition processes that would continue long after LEAC has splintered away. Some suggest that this petition drive is simply LEAC’s latest effort to mislead Episcopalians through recurring publicity stunts.

Last week, LEAC issued a misleading and invalid amateur “poll” misrepresenting the number of Episcopal Bishops who would oppose consecration of a gay bishop. It looks like the General Convention’s “silly season” have started early on the right wing.