THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Representatives of Concerned Episcopalians are opposed to permitting gays to joint the ranks of ordained priests in the Episcopal Church (news, Aug. 16). One of the group's members states that homosexuals began targeting the church 20 years ago, entering its seminaries without revealing themselves, and proceeding to actively promote gay interests within the church.
In our experience, a number of closeted gay clergy worked in the church before the 1970s; in many cases, their sexual orientation was known to their colleagues and their bishops.
The new development in the early 1970s was that some gay seminarians challenged the policy of secrecy by publicly revealing their individual orientation.
While supporters of gays within the church have grown more forthright in intervening years, their presence has not followed from some ``Trojan horse'' strategy of clergy ordained in the past 20 years who have come out. In our view, the themes of inclusion, conversion, renewal, love and redemption in the gospel, in conjunction with changing societal forces, drive the growth of support for gays and lesbians within the Episcopal Church today.
For the Concerned Episcopalians to accuse Bishop Frank Vest of incompetence as a church leader is to deny the divergence of viewpoint within the church. A basically centrist approach is prudent in view of widespread and ongoing change in public opinion about gays and lesbians: The centrist approach acknowledges the pain of those holding diverging views, implicitly recognizes that change in opinion comes from personal experience, not public edict, and holds out for future reconciliation.
DOUGLAS S. HULBERT
SUSAN S. HULBERT
Virginia Beach, Aug. 20, 1994 by CNB