Irony of the Week

Update: the pre-signing add by NOM... view it here, (30 sec.) Then call the NH Governor (it will cost almost nothing and take about one minute of your time!) and let him know how much you appreciate him signing the bill. NOM, nicely, provides you with that number in their video. Finally, they are useful:)

Yesterday, after years of working on the issue, the New Hampshire Governor signed a bill that would allow lgbt persons to marry in the state. This is the sixth state to "legalize" lgbt marriage.

The Episcopal Church's first openly gay Bishop, Gene Robinson, testified at the hearings in favor of lgbt marriage before the state's legislative body. +Gene is a New Hampshire resident, as is his partner Mark Andrew, and is Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese.

Meanwhile, we learn, in the face of the upcoming TEC convention being held in Anaheim, CA--a state which recently banned lgbt marriage via Proposition 8--that a subcommittee (of nameless membership, and here) of the Bishop's Theology Committee is "studying" same gender relationships with a report due out in 2011, two years AFTER the upcoming July 2009 convention.

Over a dozen resolutions to be considered at the upcoming convention pertaining to marriage of lgbt persons, revision of Prayer Book language, canonical revisions, even the rescinding of B033 etc. are known at this time.

But the irony greatest to me is this:

This man, our Bishop of the Episcopal Church's New Hampshire Diocese...

can now legally marry his partner Mark Andrew, should they desire, anywhere in New Hampshire with one major glitch...

He and Mark could not, under B033, marry in a New Hampshire Episcopal Church.

So... the state gives the green light, TEC's B033 stands in the way, and a Bishop's Theological subcommittee want to study it for a few more years.

If this ghastly irony doesn't give you pause, it should.

While many of we Episcopalians are marching with our lgbt brothers and sisters, knocking on doors to "listen" to people in California (I am training this Sunday for this) in preparation for a 2010 or 2012 ballot measure to legalize equality through lgbt marriage in the state, our own church (already with lgbt's active in EVERY level of our church) lags behind after 30+ years of reflection on the matter.

As my e-mail signature suggests:

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

So I have to pop the question: Which will it be, TEC?