Forbidden love

Todays little nugget of topicality is this: Anglican rift grows over gay row. To summarise, a while ago a man was appointed the Bishop of New Hampshire even though the 'word on the street' is that he has a boyfriend. This caused a big bru-ha-ha at the time, because as well all know God hates fags. The latest news is that it rather looks like the US church (and Canada, who are also limp-wristed on such matters) are goig to get thrown out of the club for their complicity.

I find myself very puzzled, and slightly nauseated. It's a common sensation I have when dealing with religious news. Maybe that means I'm of diabolical heritage or something, but I've got at least two rationalisations to offer this time. The first is obvious enough, I think: What? A relationship is only OK if the partners are of opposite sex? Why should that be? However, I don't think that's something we're ever likely to get to the bottom of. Let's set aside the whole mythology of sexual orientation as a 'lifestyle choice', or the idea homosexuals are also paedophiles, or any other of a dozen libelous ideas that survive in the heads of people who consider the process of finding out any freakin' facts on this topic as too spiritually dangerous to be embarked upon.

My questions is... why does it matter? I mean, let's say that the Atlantic schism goes right ahead and now we have West Anglicans and Old Anglicans. So then will the Anglicans living over here be against gay Bishops, while Americans won't care? Does it mean that indivual churches will decide whether they're going to be Old or West? Or hey, here's a crazy idea: maybe people will decide for themselves, regardless of church policy. But if people are going to go ahead and use their brains and hearts to decide what they think is right, then what are all these old men being paid for?

Well, I have to reflect on that old lesson one more time: Unless you have a strange and endless thirst for the dark excesses of human idiocy, reasearching these kind of topics is quintessentially nauseating.

Music: "Spanish Main" by the Coral