Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:55:35 -0400 From: Chris Ambidge Subject: *Integrator* files for 1996 INTEGRATOR, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto volume 96-3, issue date 1996 09 20 copyright 1996 Integrity/Toronto. The hard-copy version of this newsletter carries the ISSN 0843-574X ==Contents== WELCOMING ALL INTO THE CHURCH / an interview with Bishop Michael Ingham by Willem Hart PUBLISHING THE BAN / the Bishop of Ottawa would dismiss clergy for blessing gay or lesbian couples AN ISSUE OF BLOOD / some thoughts on Mark 5:21-43 by KD Miller PRIDE! 1996 / Ottawa Pride by Ron Chaplin, Toronto Pride by Chris Ambidge INTEGRATOR ON THE INTERNET OCTOBER IS AIDS AWARENESS MONTH PRIMATE CALLS ENGLISH BISHOP'S ATTITUDE "COLONIAL" / Bishop of Rochester has no business lecturing American church on homosexuality, says Archbishop Michael Peers GALT KORTRIGHT 1947-1996 / Obituary by John Gartshore === begin text === WELCOMING ALL INTO THE CHURCH Willem Hart, chair of the AdHoc Group in the Diocese of Toronto, interviews the Rt Rev Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster = = = = = = On September 27 1996 at 7:30pm, Michael Ingham will be the featured speaker at a public meeting at St Leonard's Church, Toronto. He will speak on "FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD: Welcoming gays, lesbians and heterosexuals into the Anglican Church of Canada" = = = = = = Q I'm intrigued by your topic. Do you think gays and lesbians have the same rights and privileges of membership in the Church as heterosexuals? A Yes I do. Or at least, they ought to have. My understanding of baptism is that we are all made members one of another. There are no grounds for discrimination in Jesus Christ. The church has yet to understand the implications of this with respect to gay and lesbian Christians. Q Your stance is at odds with centuries of Christian practice in this area. How do you justify that? A On the basis of the Gospel itself. I am not an advocate of secular humanism, nor of moral relativism. I believe the grounds for full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the church is the radical inclusivity of Jesus Christ. I find his silence on homosexuality to be more eloquent than the verbosity of many of his followers. Q Do you think we will live to see the day when gays and lesbians are fully accepted into the communion of the saints? A Yes, I do. I am not hopeful that the church will be able to move soon, however. We do need to respect the process of dialogue which many dioceses, including my own, have embarked upon. It will take more time than many of us wish to see, but it is necessary. Q Do you think that committed, monogamous gay and lesbian unions should be blessed by the Church? A Yes I do. This in fact -- not ordination -- is the main issue from my point of view. I think the time has come to support permanent, stable and committed relationships among gay and lesbian couples. The church is in the business of supporting fidelity in human relationships. It's ironic, in my opinion, that another group of that same name is opposed to it. Q We understand that several Western bishops, and one or two bishops in the East are sympathetic to your views. Is it possible that one or more of you might move on this issue, as has Bishop Spong in the Episcopal Church? A We are in a different situation from Bishop Spong and the Episcopal Church. In Canada we have historically tried to act together rather than unilaterally. There are a number of Canadian bishops supportive of justice for gay and lesbian people, but we are trying to work this through collegially in the House of Bishops. Q Does the issue of "collegiality" in the House of Bishops prevent some bishops from moving ahead on this issue? A It may be possible for some dioceses to move ahead on this issue without the necessity of all dioceses doing the same. However, I would like to see the House itself support such a move in order to avoid unilateralism. We did the same thing, after all, over the ordination of women. And we are still in this situation with respect to the communion of children. Q Is this issue similar to the "women in office" issue? A I think there are parallels in that we were dealing with pathology more than theology. There was the objection that it would be ecumenically disastrous. There were arguments from tradition. But there is one significant difference, in that we did not have explicit texts from Scripture prohibiting the ordination of women. Q What was the process in the "women in office" issue? Can we follow the same model? A We do need to follow the same model to the extent that there needs to be widespread education and teaching on this issue. Women scholars themselves achieved considerable academic attention and respect before the church could move. The arguments were sifted and tested. Other institutions in Canada made the move first. Civil and secular law established the equality of women in society. The church in the First World (unlike the developing world) sometimes finds it difficult to take the lead on moral questions until society has made it safe to do so. Q Is this an "essential" issue of the faith? A No it isn't Q How do we deal with "non-essentials"? A What is essential are the basic doctrines of the church with respect to God, the Trinity, the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, and so on. This issue falls into the area of "order" rather than "faith." The church can change its practice in this area without changing any doctrine. Just as we did with divorce. =================== PUBLISHING THE BAN >Ottawa bishop would subject clergy to "discipline and < >dismissal" if they recognise or bless a gay or lesbian couple< = = = = = = > The headline of our last issue was "Good News from Ottawa", > as we told of Bill C-33 (adding "sexual orientation" to the > Canadian Human Rights Act) and of a conference at St John's > church. Unfortunately, not all news from Ottawa is good. > This is an excerpt from a letter sent Bishop Baycroft to > Ottawa diocesan clergy. >Integrator< was sent copies by > several sources. = = = = = = [the first three parts were thanks for participation in diocesan centennial celebrations] 4 - WARNING At the time of appointment or ordination, every Incumbent and Assistant Curate in the Diocese of Ottawa swears an Oath in which there is a promise to use the Book of Common Prayer and no other liturgy unless that liturgy has been authorised by lawful authority. Generally, this means, in this diocese, that you are free to use the BCP or the BAS. Neither the BCP nor the BAS provide a liturgy for the blessing of a same sex union. Furthermore, I have not authorised any other liturgy for this purpose. Therefore, it is clearly impossible for a priest of this diocese to preside at or celebrate a public liturgical blessing or recognition of a same sex union. If a priest were to do so, that priest would be subject to discipline and dismissal. I hope that it will make it easier for clergy to refuse requests and resist pressure for change in the direction of the blessing of same sex unions if they can point out that they will lose their jobs if they do such a thing. 5 - AN EXHORTATION Parish priests are not simply liturgical officers. They also have pastoral and evangelistic responsibilities. It is important that we show loving care and acceptance in our pastoral relationships and communal life. Many gay and lesbian Christians are valuable participants in the life of Anglican parishes in the Diocese of Ottawa. I am glad that this is so. As a church body we have made statements advocating justice and respect for rights and dignity for all human beings. It is very important, therefore, that the limitation of what can be done liturgically is not used as an excuse to ignore pastoral and evangelistic responsibilities, or to neglect gay and lesbian church members, or for that matter, anyone inside or outside the church. Yours in Christ [+ John Baycroft] The Right Reverend JA Baycroft Bishop of Ottawa = = = = = = >Integrator responds:< > In Part 5, Bishop Baycroft says that it is important for the > church to show loving care and acceptance to lesbigays, and > indeed it is. Yet in Part 4 he explicitly threatens to fire > any of his clergy should they bless a same-sex union, and > interprets attempts to open a dialogue on the subject as > "pressure". > Having uttered his threat against his clergy to "make it > easier" for them, the bishop goes on to talk about their > "evangelistic responsibilities", ie proclaiming the good news > to those same couples he has just forbidden the clergy to > bless (but he's glad those couples are there, nonetheless). > From pastoral care like this, good Lord deliver us! ================== AN ISSUE OF BLOOD Some thoughts on Mark 5:21-43 by KD Miller [Mark 5:21 - 43 tells the stories of the healing of the woman cured of the 12 year issue of blood, and of the raising of Jairus' daughter] >Daughter, your faith has healed you ... Get up, my child< This is the tale of two healings. One very public, the other intensely private. One involving a man of power and influence, the other a woman without a name. One buoyed with sympathy for the parent of a dying child, the other weighed down by socially sanctioned bigotry. At first glance, one event appears to have little to do with the other, save to stall and even threaten its outcome. On his way to the house of Jairus, a synagogue president whose daughter is in a coma, Jesus is distracted by the touch of a woman who has haemorrhaged for twelve years. In the time he takes to cure her, the other dies. This is not, of course, the end of the story. Jesus goes on to Jairus' house, takes his daughter by the hand, says "Talitha cum," that is "Get up, my child," and raises her from the dead. Then there is a final, rather curious detail. We are told for some reason that the child is twelve years old. It is a simple statement of fact, yet oddly appended, like an afterthought or a postscript. Except that there are no postscripts in Mark. More about that later. Before writing this, I had never given much thought to the sleeping girl. My imagination had always been captured by the haemorrhaging woman. The first time I heard her story in Sunday School (and no doubt assumed she was suffering from a mega nosebleed), something about her furtiveness intrigued me. Well, I was a furtive child, peeking at the world from around the edges of a book. Much later in life, I became a furtive Christian, skulking my way to church, terrified that someone I knew might catch me committing the ultimate in uncool. Of course, the haemorrhaging woman is not merely introverted or out of step with fashion. She is, through no fault of her own, at odds with her entire world. A pariah. In Leviticus 15 there is a lengthy passage concerning menstrual blood. Part of it goes like this:...> if a woman has a prolonged discharge of blood not at the time of her menstruation, her impurity will last all the time of her discharge; she will be unclean as during the period of her menstruation.< That is, everything she touches, or that touches her, will be rendered unclean. This woman has been "unclean" for twelve years. Her husband has likely divorced her. She is without doubt unspeakably lonely, having internalised her society's fear and loathing. We are told that she has spent all her money on cures that haven't worked. When she sneaks up behind Jesus, terrified of being noticed, she is gambling with her faith, the one thing she has left to lose. In a line taken from Lamentations >her filthiness is in her skirts.< The first time I heard those words during Tenebrae, I remembered seeing a homeless woman on Bloor Street. As she went past me, for some reason I turned and watched her walk away. The back of her skirt was caked with dried blood. Here was a side of being down and out that had never occurred to me. My reaction was knee-jerk disgust, aimed first at her, then at myself for feeling anything other than pity. After all, we've come a long way. Or have we? If I need to buy pads or tampons, I have to look for a sign saying >Feminine Hygiene.< And I can be sure the word >sanitary< will appear more than once on the product package, along with a depiction of doves, daisies, dandelion fluff or something else suggesting purity, innocence, and above all, cleanliness. God forbid a hint of what the thing is really for. God forbid blood. I am told that there are some so-called "primitive" societies in which a child's menarche is cause for celebration, and she herself is honoured by her community as the woman she has become. My own, which occurred in 1961, was greeted at first by my mother bursting into tears (thus momentarily confirming my suspicion that I was bleeding to death), then my her whisking me into the bathroom, for a hurried, whispered explanation. Great emphasis was placed on how to wrap the used pad in toilet paper, and how deeply to bury it in the bathroom wastebasket. The implication was clear: for my father or brother to suffer the sight of my menstrual blood would be the height of indecency. Back to biblical times. As if we ever left them. I am amazed at the courage of the woman in Mark's gospel. By approaching a man, a holy man, and daring to touch him, she risks not only his condemnation, but the wrath of the crowd that adores him. I am equally in awe of that man's compassion. His maturity. His ability, in short, to cut through the crap. He knows exactly what has been done to him. As a Jew, he has been rendered ritually unclean. But he does not condemn the woman. Instead, he commends her for her faith. His response is revolutionary in his own time. It still is one in ours. I believe the words "unclean" and "impure" remain buried deep in our psyches. I believe they are behind the Pope's intransigence regarding the ordination of women. I believe they fuel the protests over the priesting of female ordinands by the Church of England. I believe that on some level, we still fear that menstrual blood will defile the Blood of Christ. I promised to get back to Jairus' daughter being twelve years old. Something I've learned about Mark's writing is that it's a very tight weave. Nothing sticks out. Nothing does not serve to reinforce the whole. Twelve is the median age of menarche. Jairus' daughter has either just begun to menstruate, or is just about to. On the brink of womanhood, she has retreated into a coma. She knows her twelve years of "purity" are about to end, and she is scared to death. The woman, on the other hand, has suffered twelve years of "impurity". On the brink of destitution and death, she struggles to wake back up into life. To both, our Lord says, >Talitha cum.< = = = = = = About the author: KD Miller acknowledges with thanks the input of Integrity members who helped with the final draft of this article. She is a parishioner of St Clement's Eglinton, and the author of >A Litany in Time of Plague< (c) 1994 Porcupine's Quill Inc. ================ PRIDE! 1996 Joyful Celebrations in Ottawa and Toronto = = = = = = OTTAWA PRIDE by Ron Chaplin To celebrate Pride here in Ottawa. I joined 5000 of my gay and lesbian friends to march up Elgin Street to Parliament Hill, and then to retire for a picnic at City Hall. I walked with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa, wearing my red ribbon on a tee-shirt which said "Nobody knows I'm HIV+". When we arrived on Parliament Hill, an enormous rainbow flag was unfurled, completely covering the main stairs leading up to the Peace Tower. The parade passed in front of St. John's Church on Elgin St. The church doors were open, with a rainbow flag hanging from the archway. Friday afternoon I got a call from a friend, who put this bee in my bonnet. For the last five years, a small group of fundies have inserted themselves into the parade, carrying placards saying "Remember Sodom and Gomorrah" and quoting Leviticus. They always get prominent media coverage on television and the newspaper. This year, some of my church friends made up placards which read, "Jesus says, Love Your Neighbour" and "Jesus says, Judge Not Lest You Be Judged". Whenever they saw one of the fundies, they walked up and stood beside them. It worked! = = = = = = TORONTO PRIDE by Chris Ambidge Monday of Pride Week began rainy but well, as Lesbian /Gay Pride Week was proclaimed by the Mayor at City Hall, and the rainbow flag raised there, to fly for the whole week. This is the second year the Mayor has done it herself, and later in the week she walked in the parade, too. This year, the Church of the Holy Trinity (Integrity's home parish) did a number of things to celebrate Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. On Wednesday, they had an evening potluck supper and discussion on lesbigay issues in the church, with the Bishop Finlay in attendance. Good things were said and heard on both sides. Pride Day itself was hot and sunny. At my parish (Redeemer) I invited everyone to join the 600 000 of my closest friends who had showed up last year and would doubtless be there this year, and then moved on to Church St (after donning mucho sunscreen, and soon buying a hat to protect my ever-thinning scalp). Six blocks of closed street and booths and displays and PEOPLE!!! One of the displays was handing out stickers (which MANY people ended up wearing), "I work at the FRONT of the shop", a reference to Reform MP Bob Ringma's comment that he thought it was OK for a gay or black employee to be asked to work at the back of the shop if it was upsetting the (bigoted) clientele. At 2:30 I went to join the parade. This year Integrity walked with Holy Trinity, who had their first float (a pickup truck, with signs "gonna keep on loving boldly".) HT had invited everyone in the Toronto area who signed the "Openness" letter to join them, and a number of people, clergy and lay, were there. Their church banner "Church of the Holy Trinity / Social Justice Now" brought up the rear, and we added two Integrity banners and a rainbow flag. It took from 3:00 to 3:30 for us to go through the marshaling queue and to get to Gerrard St, where the parade began. And the crowds! heavens, it was even bigger than last year. It took us nearly two hours to finish the route (one of these years, I'm going to have to actually SEE the parade, instead of marching in it). The media said that we exceeded even last year, with 700 000 people, and I'd believe that. I think the numbers should make a significant impact on those who look at our community from the outside. [yes, Premier Harris, even if you don't treat gays and lesbians well because it's moral so to do, how 'bout treating us well because we bring 700 000 people to Toronto, which HAS to be good for business!] Ron Chaplin, of Ottawa, walked with us too. He said "the most touching moments in the parade were the three times that men came out of the crowd to come to shake my hand. All were seniors, in their late 60's or in their 70's. They all had basically the same thing to say: "Thanks to the Anglican Church for making a place for people like us." Well, we do. Sort of. More like breaking down the doors, though." It was all very happy and un-nasty and the worst that will happen from that is some sunburns in unusual places. When I think of what would have happened less than a decade ago, the acceptance of the diversity in our community by those in it and those outside it is miraculous to behold. Indeed, many things have changed. My first Pride parade was 1985, and there wasn't a tenth of the people there then. All of the displays fitted into Cawthra Park; this year the park was just one of three beer gardens. Back then, sexual orientation was protected only in Quebec, now there are seven (soon to be 8, including Newfoundland)provinces/ territories and the federal government. Back then, there was very little church support, this year along with two MCC floats (and an MCC service in Maple Leaf Gardens) there was an Anglican church float. Pride is a happy day, for celebrating the good-ness of our creation as lesbigay(etc) people of God; and also for reflecting on how far we've come. ================== >INTEGRATOR< ON THE INTERNET The text of >Integrator< has been published in electronic form for some time now. Since our last publication, though, this material has now been archived on the World Wide Web, and is available to anyone with web-browser capability. Just point your browser to: http:/www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/orgs/integrity/integrator/ and you'll find an archive of >Integrator< going back to 1995. We're working on putting all back issues on the website. This website is in QRD, the Queer Resources Directory. If you explore the site (by deleting "/integrator/" at the end of the url above, for instance) you'll find other items of interest: Integrity sites, other gay-positive religious organisations, and so on. If you would like to receive >Integrator< in electronic form, please send e-mail to the editor, Chris Ambidge, at > ambidge@chem-eng.utoronto.ca.< This will get you text only -- sorry, Doc & Raider fans, we're not able to transmit images yet. ============== OCTOBER IS AIDS AWARENESS MONTH [Postal subscribers] may have noticed that the stamp on the envelope which brought this issue of >Integrator< to [them] speaks of the hope that AIDS will be conquered. The stamp was issued to mark the International AIDS Conference held in Vancouver this summer. October is AIDS Awareness Month in the Anglican Church. Churches may be observing AIDS Awareness on one of the Sundays in the month. The Toronto Diocesan AIDS Committee is sponsoring a Eucharist with laying on of hands at 7 pm on Sunday October 6 at the Church of the Redeemer, Toronto (Bloor and Avenue Road -- Museum or Bay subway stations). The Celebrant will be the Rev Canon Ansley Tucker. Please attend this service, or services at your own parish, and pray for all those living with AIDS, both the infected and the affected. The AIDS Walk will be on Sunday 29 September. You can get further information by telephone at 1 800 705 WALK, or on the Internet at www.hom.ican.net/~aidswalk/ . Sponsorship forms can be found at branches of the Royal Bank. ============== PRIMATE CALLS ENGLISH BISHOP'S ATTITUDE "COLONIAL" >Bishop of Rochester has no business lecturing American< >church on homosexuality, says Peers< From the >Times< of London, 14 June 1996, by Ruth Gledhill. "The archbishop who heads the Anglican Church in Canada today attacks the Church of England's bishops for adopting an 18th- century 'colonial' attitude towards the American Church over issues such as homosexual priests. "Archbishop Michael Peers, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, gives warning of 'an English attempt to demonize the American Church'. Writing in >The Church of England Newspaper<, he defends his Church against accusations that it is failing to uphold traditional teaching on homosexuality. "He adds, 'The phenomenon of people in English palaces issuing warnings to other people across the Atlantic about positions they must hold, as well as about the consequences of failure to do so, sound like the madness of King George III.' "His attack comes in response to a warning from the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, that the American Church should uphold traditional teachings. He spoke out after [Bishop Walter Righter] was cleared by an American church court of a heresy charge because he knowingly ordained a homosexual. "The archbishop's letter brings into the open the cross-Atlantic battle over the ordination of homosexuals, which seems set to dominate the 1998 Lambeth conference, the ten-yearly meeting of the worldwide bishops of the Anglican communion." =============== GALT KORTRIGHT 1947 - 1996 Obituary by John Gartshore Integrity lost a long-standing friend recently with the death of Galt Kortright this past summer. For a time, when Galt was Chaplain to the Toronto Chapter, the chapter telephone was in his house, and the Executive regularly met at his dining-room table. We especially remember his wise advice about the many pastoral aspects of our ministry: not only towards lesbigay Anglicans, but also towards those who find our presence in the Church disturbing. Galt's strength of character was evident at an early age. how touching were his stories about boarding school in the 60's -- an unfriendly environment for anyone, but especially so for one who was partially deaf. The determination he needed to become a parish organist, then a priest, and to override systemic difficulties in ministry to persons with AIDS, show how well Galt has learned how to deal with is disability. Galt never allowed people to exclude him because of his deafness. his insisting on the consideration he needed from everyone, coupled with is sense of humour, is a continuing source of richness to us all. Rest in peace. === end of text === End of volume 96-3 of Integrator, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto copyright 1996 Integrity/Toronto comments please to Chris Ambidge, Editor ambidge@chem-eng.utoronto.ca OR Integrity/Toronto Box 873 Stn F Toronto ON Canada M4Y 2N9