"Anglican Church Asks U.S., Canada to Leave" over gays

[Bluebear]

Gay marriage is apparently more important than all the other ills of the world to the Pope ("gay marriage is the ideology of EVIL" and now to the Anglicans.

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LONDON - Leaders of the global Anglican Communion declared Thursday that they want the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw from the communion's councils temporarily, and to explain their attitudes toward gays which have split the church.

The statement was issued by primates a day earlier than planned, following their meetings this week at a Roman Catholic retreat in Northern Ireland.

The U.S. church precipitated the most serious rift in the communion's history when it affirmed the election of V. Gene Robinson, who openly lives with a male partner, as bishop of New Hampshire. Both churches have been criticized by conservatives for sanctioning blessings of gay unions.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050224/ap_on_re_eu/anglicans_gays

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. They're under pressure from their Third World members

My totally unsubstantiated take on the situation is that when Anglican missionaries converted all those people in Asia and Africa?they required them to give up polygamy and other traditional practices. As converts often do, they became more Victorian than the Victorians who converted them.

Now that Westerners are giving up the Victorian morality that their ancestors taught to African and Asian converts, the Third World Anglicans (who outnumber the European and North American members) are indignant and exercising their numerical power.

I don't agree with them at all--Bishop Robinson has spoken at my church, and he's a wonderful preacher--but I'm just explaining why this is happening.

[Bluebear]

2. That is invaluable background info LL

Robinson is from a nearby church here, I am porid that New Hampshire for once is leading the way :)

Thanks for the background scoop. I know you would never agree with it, and understanding why things are happening get to the root of the issue.