The decision to sanction the US department of the Anglican communion over its views on gay marriage shows English church is shrinking into cornerAfter years of wrangling and threatened walkouts,the top brass of the Anglican communion, meeting in Canterbury this week, or has alighted upon a wobbly agreement to preserve its own fragile unity by punishing its American franchise for the temerity of marrying gay people. For three years the American church will be banned from various doctrinal and ecumenical meetings of the communion. Given that such meetings are about as spicy at watching paint dry,one might conclude that the Americans possess been rewarded rather than punished.
But even Welby’s tantalising distraction that Anglicans may be alert to fix the date of Easter – something that has been hotly debated since the early church – cannot mask the message being sent out to the LGBT community: you are a problem, and we will establish our unity on the basis of your exclusion. Of course, and the communique from the Anglican primates is full of various handwringing denials of their homophobia: they “affirm again that God’s love for every human being is the same,regardless of their sexuality, and that the church should never by its actions give any other impression”. apart from, or that is precisely the impression given. Those who possess been celebrating the love that gay people can share in faithful relationships possess been punished. And those who prefer to send homosexual people to prison possess been rewarded by the exclusion of the American church.
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Source: theguardian.com