Box Turtle Bulletin has helped to identify some of leading U.S. Anglican churches — dropouts from the Episcopal Church — that now take orders from the human-rights opponents who lead the churches of Uganda and Nigeria.
An article in the LA Times from 2004 identified three of the charter members of this network:
St. David’s Episcopal Church in North Hollywood, Calif.
All Saints’ in Long Beach, Calif.
St. James in Newport Beach, Calif.
However, since 2004, many many more churches have joined what is now the Anglican Church in America.
Whether they stop to think about it or not, these churches implicitly affirm their African leaders’ efforts to imprison and torture homosexual persons and their families and friends. The churches’ African leaders also affirm extralegal tolerance for vigilantism and corrective rape.
Please find a church near you. Then politely ask the church to state publicly its detailed position regarding Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, regarding the criminalization of homosexuality in the United States and Canada, and regarding freedom of expression and freedom of religion for persons who affirm sexual honesty and individual freedom. Remind them that their African leaders’ positions will be assumed to be their own, unless they say otherwise. Please let us know what you hear from them.
The LGBT people of Uganda will thank you.
Thank-you for your article about churches who support genocide. If you are a church-goer and hear attacks from the pulpit targeting hate speech toward anyone, I encourage you to challenge these attacks as unchristian. We attended an ethnic festival at a christian church and got a tour of the church and its icons from an older minister. He began ranting about gays and lesbians in the neighborhood, so I engaged him in his church. I asked him if his church was a hate organization as people like us who live in the neighborhood need to know this, especially if there’s a hate crime from one of its parishoners. You should have seen his mouth drop open when I asked him these questions. I asked him if he knew what other groups were marched off to Hitler’s ovens besides Jews and gypsies. He didn’t know that gay men & women wore pink triangles and also were gassed. In my opinion, this minister was out of line and I called his bishop who actually defended the hate speech. I’ll be so happy when these institutions will be taxed as the political organisations they are. So please, if you are a parishioner and hear hate speech, cause a ruckus and make it big and public. They’ll hate the publicity and muzzle themselves. Love, Dom R.N.
Ugh, I hate it when Greek Food Festivals go bad. ;)
It’s like “Hi, Greek Orthodox people, remember how you have a reputation within the Eastern Orthodox church for being the fun ones who would rather party? Yes, stick with that.”
The big Greek church in Memphis is pretty liberal from what I can tell.