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Punch on: Open thread 03/08/2010

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

03 Aug 05:00am

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Filed under: Anglican Church, Gay Rights, Open Thread, Religion, United States

34 comments

Reverend Canon Gene Robinson of New Hampshire became the first gay bishop to be consecrated into the American Anglican Church today in 2003.

Picture: AP.

It was a decision that angered religious leaders around the world but Robinson was elated: “I think I can do more for gay and lesbian folk in the Church by being a good bishop than by being the gay bishop,” he told reporters. Got something to say about this event or anything else? Share it here.

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34 comments

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    • Steve says:

      08:09am | 03/08/10

      No way was he the first gay bishop of the American Anglican Church; he may have been the first to have the courage and integrity to admit to it.

      Reply

    • davo says:

      08:13am | 03/08/10

      Ok everyone, some handy definitions before we start. If we are going to be engaged in a national political debate, let’s learn the names of the antagonists.
      ’Labor – L-a-b-o-r’ is the short form name of the Australian Labor Party’.
      ‘labour – l-a-b-o-u-r’ is physical toil done for wages.
      ‘Labour – L-a-b-o-u-r’ is the short form name of the British Labour Party. Repeat 10 times.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      08:38am | 03/08/10

      Tony Abbott has a poor public speaking style which gives the lie to the claim that he is ‘up front’ and honest.  His stammering and stalling tactics obviously come from the pressures on him to avoid straying from the ‘script’.  Tony doesn’t have the smooth style of a practised liar such as JH that doesn’t mean he isn’t telling lies.  He probably doesn’t have the capacity to reconcile the needs of the Liberal Party with his own desire for making enthusiastic poisonous comment, and putting his foot in his mouth.  If e wait long enough he’ll shoot himself in the foot!

      Reply

    • Steve says:

      10:24am | 03/08/10

      He does have a very cunning spin team though. These guys know that to cut through to voters with short attention spans, the message must be kept very simple eg “debt and deficit” as a substitute for arguing economic policy.  The spin team knows that their target voters prefer salacious gossip to the tedious repetition of otherwise sound policies.  The Libs have their own internet web attack team who dismiss arguments like the above with ridicule.  Nasty but effective.

    • Gregg says:

      01:02pm | 03/08/10

      Really moving forward are you acotrel?
      You will be able to with a better government btw, not just a recycled one of the old trying to put a different twist on old policies.
      And Julia does not need to put a foot in her mouth, not that she likely could with her own, but she just has to open her mouth!

    • fairsfair says:

      09:18am | 03/08/10

      So you are saying that someone who speaks slowly and uses stalling words is a poor communicator? What about people who begin every statement with “oh, look (pause) what I said (pause)  was **insert backflip**”, speak even slower than Tony (listen closely now you will hear it) and attempt to encourage the country to “move forward” on the premise that if we look back we might see almost three years of struggle and past that easier times? Tony Abbot may have his faults, but to quote labour “you vote for the party and the policy, not the person” - and that is what we should all be doing here. People want Turnbull, they want Hockey - well here is a revelation - you vote for Tony - you will get those men assisting him in running the country. I watched a popular panel program last night and on the back of the performance of the current minister for small business (who was just a plain interrupting jerk who was like a dear in the headlights) my swing from labour to the coalition has just been consolidated.

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      09:26am | 03/08/10

      One of my biggest gripes with the mainstream media at the moment is the implication that women will vote for JG just because she is a woman. They then swing to say that mothers won’t vote for her because she doesn’t have babies,  but the 40 something single ladies will love her and that’ll make up for it. I can’t belive that there are people out there so shallow or maybe silly is the better word. I don’t have babies, I don’t have a husband and I am focussed on my career at this stage of my life. Of all people JG should resonate with me - be she doesn’t. In fact the opposite is actually happening and same said from all my same demographic friends. Does anyone have any opinion as to why JG appears to be losing all the ladies?? Could it simply be that we do actually have intelligence and see through the facade of labor and focus on the politics at hand, or is it something else?

      Reply

    • Gregg says:

      12:57pm | 03/08/10

      You do have to remember fairsfair that the mainstream media is going to be so full of stuff in these next two/three weeks like we’ve never seen before and there’ll be generalisations on just about any categorisation of voters that can be developed and that’ll be more than usual simply because JG is female.
      And you’ll likely hear it talked up more and more by those portions of the media or by people in the media that have a left leaning.
      As much as there will be people that will vote Labor because of being dyed in the wool Labor supporters or because of JG’s sex there surely will be intelligent voters of both sex that will make decisions on other matters like past performance and policy.

    • Peter says:

      10:37am | 03/08/10

      Just had a discussion with the girls in the office and we all agreed (including me) that for $37 million dollars we would be willing to subject ourselves to a being “pushy” for quite a while.. It would be a good pay off..

      Im sorry, that lawsuit is too “American” for me. I agree she should win the case and the CEO lose his job, but i would award this woman no more than $1000 + costs to avoid this American style litigation..

      Reply

    • astrid says:

      10:41am | 03/08/10

      It was a pretty sad day for the church as they gave in to the lobby group and put God and the Bible to the back shelf.  The bible is pretty clear on the gays and sexual sin, to ordain this bishop means they had to reject large parts of the Bible and ignore the bits that focus on sin. The whole point of the Bible is the message of us as sinner and Christ to die for our sins.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      11:22am | 03/08/10

      Why was Christ always hanging around with fellas, never women?>

    • Peter says:

      11:30am | 03/08/10

      Mary Magdaline.. He probably had more male friends, like most blokes do. Please don’t re-write the bible for us…

    • Tone says:

      11:45am | 03/08/10

      astrid, why do you think a Christian church would reject parts of the bible?

    • astrid says:

      12:04pm | 03/08/10

      @ Tone

      Because they chose to ordain a gay bishop, it is in direct contradiction to what the Bible says. I there fore assumed that they either overlooked the verses relating to homosexuals or they rejected the Bible. If you are of the belief ( ie a anglican bishop ) you would be of the belief that the Bible was God inspired and there fore Gods Word.

    • Gregg says:

      01:13pm | 03/08/10

      But Astrid the bible was written so long ago and not that I agree with Julia and her moving forward but there are a lot of views that were held back then from which the bible was developed, views formed from ignorance.
      I’m not as athiest as Julia though not also a greatly religious person but have not some religions developed different understandings of life?

      If you as a mother have a child, male or female and their chromosone mix has them with different views of their sexuality to you, will you infact attempt to drill into them that they are not to be different in sexual belief and then condemm them because they eventually reject your attempts?

    • TheRealDave says:

      01:13pm | 03/08/10

      I wasn’t aware there was apassage in the Bible that said Thou shallt not ordain Gay Bishops??

      Further, I wasn’t aware that Jeabus said that Gay people couldn’t become members of the clergy.

      I love it when ‘Christians’ pick and choose the bits of the bible to ‘have faith’ in as the word of god, but hten criticize those who ‘have faith’ in other bits and pieces as the word of god. I’ll take Leviticus for $300 thanks ... yeah but not the bits that make me look like a foaming at the mouth lunatic thanks…..

      Not bad for a religion made up by a bloke who fell off his horse and suffered a horrendous brain injury…..its a pity he didn’t stay down….

    • astrid says:

      01:50pm | 03/08/10

      @ TheRealDave and Gregg

      If your not aware of what the Bible say pick it up and read it ( Im sure you will). You can start in Matthew if you want or if you want to be a little more specific on the topic start with Romans.

      But the point is you probably dont believe it or dont believe it is relevant to you. Fair enough.

      The bishops do they do believe that it is the word of God. They chose to ignore it. Any Biblical scolar worth his or her salt will say that the Bible is clear on sexual sin.

      As far a having faith in bits of it I have faith in all of it, the first bit or the Old Testament is still relevant but is a historical account, The 2nd bit is the nuts and bolts of the faith. Hence the recommendation you start at the 2nd bit. ( or New Testament).  I apolgize if I am unclear but it hardly a matter that can be resolved on a blog.

    • Tone says:

      02:00pm | 03/08/10

      astrid, I know it is on contradiction to a few passages in the bible (not many), but *why* do they ignore them?  How can they ignore them?

      It’s like they have some disconnect from the foundations.  Why?

    • Peter says:

      02:05pm | 03/08/10

      Im a Christian (was baptised as one anyway)... My God, i believe will look after people with a good heart, gay or not, athiest or not..

    • Trevor says:

      03:00pm | 03/08/10

      @astrid, if you think the bible is ‘pretty clear’ on gays, you’re not reading it very carefully.  If you did, you would find that the Bible doesn’t say anything about homosexuality being the reason for Sodom being destroyed, despite the idea being so ingrained that we ended up with the word ‘sodomy’.

      You would also learn that various other passages can just as easily be read as forbidding pagan religious rituals that involved homosexuality, rather than all homosexuality full stop.

      It’s got nothing to do with ‘ignoring’ the Bible and everything to do with reading for context.

    • astrid says:

      03:31pm | 03/08/10

      @Tone I guess it comes down to this,

      the Bible has set out a some pretty basic stuff basically it is faith in the death and ressurection of Jesus, there is some dos and dont but the focus is Christ.

      The bishops invovled choose to live a life style contradictory to what the bible say about the way christians should live ( I can think of about 7 or so seperate verses in the New Testament that talks about homosexuality as sin and probably 10 more on sexual sin. They choose to try make the bible fit around there life style. to be a christian comes at a cost and one of those is to put away the sinful life.

      @ peter, that is quite what the bible says, its all based around christ not on peoples heart, because every body can do wrong. Ever lie? stole, cheated? even a little bit?  but still have a good ‘heart’?  what defines a good heart? and who defines that? what does the bible say?

    • Peter says:

      03:47pm | 03/08/10

      @ astrid. It won’t be me defining what a good heart is, it would be God. Some of us can do seemingly cruel things with the best of intentions / outcomes in mind. God will know this, people do not..

      I will never claimed to not have sinned but i have tried to live a good life. Presumably I will be judged on my actions and character, like everybody else..

      As for interpreting “sin” in people sex lives, i’ll leave that to you to make your own judgements on the symbolism of some sex acts..

    • astrid says:

      04:47pm | 03/08/10

      @ peter,

      spot on it wont be me or you defining who go to heaven or nto it will be God and we can have a pretty good idea by what God has told us in the Bible.  Unfortunately good acts and a good heart according to the Bible wont be good enough.  Just faith in Jesus Christ not acts. For by grace we have been saved through faith not works of our own.

    • Trevor says:

      05:31pm | 03/08/10

      @astrid, so a gay person who has faith in Christ is going to heaven. Yay. No problem for the bishop then!

    • Tone says:

      05:31pm | 03/08/10

      @ Trevor - that is interesting.  Wonder why the emphasis has changed over the intermediate centuries, and why present day Bishop ignore the new emphasis.

      @ astrid - I know what people say is in the bible, and what present Christian views are, so why do some in the church ignore them? Is it because they know what Trevor has said?

    • Peter says:

      02:05pm | 04/08/10

      @ astrid. I disagree. I reckon if you believe in God (or Jesus) and you continue to live a wretched life of crime and do harm onto others, your in for a worst fate than someone who is kind but an athiest. I don’t think God will punish people for not figuring out the riddles/mysteries of life…

    • acotrel says:

      11:02am | 03/08/10

      Congratulations Kristy for giving the managers at David Jones, some well deserved anxiety of their own. $37M is a nice round figure! Perhaps others will now act when harassment is occurring in their workplaces?

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      12:25pm | 03/08/10

      @ acotrel.. This will do women no favours. There are single women in their 40’s dying for some attention from male collegues at work. This will keep the divide in the workplace and make meeting people a little harder.

      Yes, this CEO should have stopped when it was clear the advances were not welcome, but this is not worth $37 million.. When I was 16 I got gang bashed by 8 guys because i apparantly looked at one of them when i walked passed (quite painful i tell you). Do you think I should be entitled to $37 million dollars, or are these just things that us males should put up with?

    • Gregg says:

      01:18pm | 03/08/10

      I agree Peter that $37M is well over the top and likely a figure some smart solicitor has suggested will get him a nice old cut from his % of a much smaller out of court settlement.
      But there is a difference between harassment and girl meets boy or older woman says what are you doing tonight?
      I probably never worked in the right places!

    • Peter says:

      01:46pm | 03/08/10

      @ Gregg. In big businesses there are so many policies, so many rules, and then things like this litigation which leave males so confused about “boundries” that they just don’t bother.. In the work place it is wise to just let the woman to initiate things and take it from there..  This approach has worked well for me, but it is not something that works for most men…

    • astrid says:

      05:09pm | 03/08/10

      @Trevor

      well i didnt mention Sodom but if you did read the passage you would have read that the men of Sodom wanted to have intercourse with the men Lot was housing - Gen 19: 4-5. But at the end of the day sin was the down fall of Sodom which by the sounds of it included homosexuality.

      Read Romans 1 and lets put it in context paul was writing to the Roman church ( or christians) or Corinthians 1 once again to the Church likewise Timothy.

      You make a point about ignoring you right it is read out of context, it should be read in context. It will help you in future to understand. smile  have a good one

      Reply

    • Brissy Boy says:

      07:46pm | 03/08/10

      @ Astrid. They ignore the very clear parts about stoning people for being unfaithful, non believers etc. And with the many contradictions in the bible you have to ignore some of it. Why should the homesexual bit be ignored less then the stonings?

      Reply

    • astrig says:

      09:24pm | 03/08/10

      @Trevor

      Exactly right , if you are gay it doesnt mean you are not a christian, if you have a faith in Christ you in. The thing is after you accept Christ you work hard to put off your old ways. Not to get to heave but to obey God.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      11:07pm | 03/08/10

      There is risk in harassment of others in the workplace.  A consequence could be a $37M payout.  What is the likelihood? -  As Tony Abbott says ’ NO MEANS NO’!

      Reply
 
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