The sins and alleged crimes of one gay parent say as much about the motivations and beliefs of those who advocate legal adoptions by gays and lesbians as, well, the sins and crimes of one anti-abortion activist who shoots an abortionist say something valid about the motivations and beliefs of people in the mainstream pro-life movement. In other words -- next to nothing. We are not going to be discussing that issue here. Trust me.So why, pray tell, do I mention this story at GetReligion?
As it turns out, Lombard was -- until just a few days ago -- a veteran member of the vestry at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill, N.C., a progressive, activist congregation on gay issues that has been actively scrubbing most signs of his existence from its website [Note: the church appears to have restored Lombard's name to its website, now listing him as "inactive" on the vestry -- RD] . For those not familiar with Episcopal polity, the vestry is the church's controlling board. Being on the vestry is similar to being on the parish council, in a Catholic or Orthodox context, or on the board of deacons, in a Baptist context.
Now, here's the journalistic question that we will discuss: Do you think that journalists would be interested if you had a similar criminal case and the accused was a deacon or board member in an evangelical or Catholic congregation that takes strong stands on these kinds of hot-button social issues?
If this kind of sexy story broke in the mainstream press, would this deacon be called a "devout" Southern Baptist or a "devout," "practicing" Roman Catholic? I would imagine so.
If so, should Lombard be called a "devout" Episcopalian?
If the religion would be relevant in the case of a Christian conservative, should the religion be relevant in the case of the Christian liberal?
Just asking.
UPDATE: TMatt adds this clarification in the combox below:
Note: I said the church had scrubbed MOST signs of his existence from the website, because they left him on the vestry but added (inactive). It appears that other information about him on the website vanished. See this conservative Anglican post on all of that.
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Of course it's relevant. Anything about the background of a felony child-abuse accusee is relevant.
Hector, I don't disagree with you on discouraging teens to have sex. If we think think of Robinson's talk in the context of its time, when deaths from AIDS had tripled in 5 years, the infection rate looked like it would continue to spiral out of control and there were no effective treatments. I am sure he felt the morally correct thing to do was educate as much as possible how to prevent that, including condoms. I expect those who invited him expected as much.
I am not Epicopalian, so I have no dog in that hunt. Whenever someone mentions schism I think of a favorite line from Neal Stephenson's "Odalisque". Someone is asked if two Puritans were of the same sect, "No and yes. The Puritans are like Hindoos - impossibly various, and yet all of a type." Schism is as American as apple pie to me. Without it, we'd never have gotten our strong sense of religious freedom.
Relevance of religion: Only if there is clear evidence of some sort of enabling by Lombard's local church and/or some level of pro-paedophilia attitude by major factions of ECUSA. That looks unlikely, although I might be wrong.
Relevance of homosexuality: This is more complicated. I consider that the rape of a 5-year-old boy is such an off-the-wall crime that it is not really linked to typical homosexuality. However, whereas sexual attration to very young children is a straightforward perversion, sexual attraction to young teenagers is biologically normal, albeit morally unacceptable for a range of sociopsychological reasons. I, a fairly normal heterosexual, am attracted to 14-year-old girls (I do not act on that attraction), and I expect gays are the same with respect to boys. I therefore object to gays adopting boys, because they are either teenagers or future teenagers. For similar reasons, I object to single heterosexual males adopting girls - best not to "tenter le diable".
Bias in attention: I suspect that the most important take-home point about the Catholic sex scandals is that one should scrutinise those with whom one agrees as carefully as those with whom one disagrees. There was a case in England recently of a gay couple who had been sort of poster cases for fostering, but had sexually abused numerous boys, and the authorities, in a very liberal borough, had ignored numerous warnings.
Indeed, we can find horrible crimes committed against children, by folks who will fall into one or more groups. Interesting is a commenter's assertion that single (heterosexual) men shouldn't adopt girls. It's all rather silly isn't it, to try to limit or define appropriate guidelines, when evil-bent blood parents do whatever their hearts desire to their children?
There truly is only one recourse: to acknowledge that the assertions and guidelines of God are the best we have to guide life on earth. As much as I empathize with those who struggle with a sexual attraction to the same sex (and only when it's a supposed love issue), I must abide by our Creator's premise that homosexual desire is not only wrong, but immoral. That sex is sacred. For when we toss out those two assertions, we wrestle with God's right to define His Truth. Those who do not struggle with their attraction to the same sex are in denial - not only denial of God, but of their own soul. And one must deny God before one denies their very soul.
We don't have the right to have sex with whomever we want whenever we want. And there are those who want to ensure that we do by capitalizing on the godlessness of those who head our courts. Freedom is beautiful when it acknowledges its own boundaries.
Thats my dad.
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