Is the current firestorm in the Episcopal Church over the ordination of homosexuals rooted in the earlier controversy over ordination of women?

Faquier Times-Democrat:

Is the current firestorm in the Episcopal Church over the ordination of homosexuals rooted in the earlier controversy over ordination of women?

The Rev. Caroline Parkinson thinks so. "The Great Commandment is not about exclusion," she said firmly. "I try to test everything against what the Gospel says. I have trouble with the whole notion of excluding people from God's table and from ordained ministry. I am an Episcopalian because we have a tradition not only of Scripture but also of reason."

Parkinson is the Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains. Before she was ordained, she taught history and political science at the high school level. One day a student interviewing her for the school newspaper asked her what she envisioned doing in 15 years. "Well, I loved what I was doing, but the sense of peace that I longed for just wasn't there," she said.

The ordination of women had recently been approved, and Parkinson began the arduous process of discernment leading to ordination.

"It was grueling," she said. "They pass you through three levels of questioning by individuals and committees, and through physical and psychiatric examinations. They want to be absolutely certain that you're doing this for the right reasons, that people entering the priesthood are healthy both physically and emotionally."

Even more stressful was the fact that Parkinson's father and brother were adamantly opposed to women's ordination; indeed, her father left the church as a result of its decision.

"I've had a few run-ins with hostility over the years," she said. "It's infrequent, but it happens. One Anglican priest I met at a dinner refused to speak to or look at me."
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Last month, Parkinson was in the running to succeed Peter James Lee as a new diocesan bishop. ...

Parkinson's view on Paul's prohibition against women speaking out in churches? "This is not Corinth," said Parkinson. "Paul was writing to a particular congregation in a particular set of circumstances."

She added, "For centuries Anglicans have tolerated deep disagreements and controversy over official church positions or policy while maintaining the unity of the Church in the love of Christ. The Church has been enriched by diverse interpretations of Scripture, the inclusiveness of the Gospel and openness to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit."

Diocese to study same-sex blessings :: Richmond Times Dispatch

Quote:

The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has cracked the door for allowing the blessing of same-sex unions.

Delegates to the diocese's 212th Annual Council adopted a substitute resolution that calls for a commission to look at a possible agreement on a local option for blessing same-sex unions.

Current diocesan policy prohibits blessing same-sex unions publicly. The commission is to report its findings at next January's annual council.

An overwhelming show-of-hand vote was taken yesterday during the closing business session of the council's two-day meeting at the downtown Richmond Marriott Hotel.

The original resolution called for the council to recommend that a policy of local option for parishes be adopted on a trial basis and be reviewed for final approval by the 2010 council.

During a news conference following the council meeting, the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, bishop of the diocese, said he was surprised that the resolution did not draw more discussion from the floor.
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"A lot of the animosity from the past has been avoided. We seem to be operating more as one church," said Augustine [Sanjiv Augustine, a lay delegate from St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Annandale], who was attending his fourth council meeting. "The church is about so much more than the hotbutton issues. It's about the family, worship, spirituality. I think we are over a watershed. The people who feel strongly have left the church, and I wish them well. That allows the rest of us to focus on what is important."

Augustine referred to the 15 churches in the diocese that have left the denomination and the diocese over differences about the role of homosexuals in the church and biblical authority.