Yesterday, it was announced that the new leader of the US Episcopal Church is Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Worth immediate attention is the fact that Jefferts Schori is the first female leader of the church in the US, and is one of only a few female leaders worldwide. Not only that, but she’s declaring that her church will be open to homosexuals - something that practically every institution tries to ban or, at least, avoid.

Proof of the Episcopal Church’s good intentions to include homosexuals is Bishop Gene Robinson, who was appointed three years ago as a Bishop - the first openly gay bishop in the entire 450 year history of the Anglican Communion (the global parent of the Episcopal Church).

Here’s a long exerpt from the article:

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.

“I don’t believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us,” she said.

“Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender.”

[…] Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.

“The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear — there are rules in the Bible about those that we don’t observe today,” she said.

“The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that’s certainly the great message of Jesus — to include the unincluded.”

To me, this is great news. Not because I’m gay and have really been looking for a church to join, but because someone in a position of religious power - such as Jefferts Schori - is basically saying, “Hey, the Bible isn’t the be-all and end-all of everyday life. It was written thousands of years ago and, while it has good values, there’s more to life now than was recognized then.”

That’s pretty much how I’ve always seen the Bible, or any religious text. As Barbosa said, “the Code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” The Bible, and other religious scriptures, teach us lessons in life. Any good story should do that. If you know me then you probably already know that I’m agnostic; nevertheless, I do believe in equality between fellow man and hold a small hope that we will someday live in a truly equal society. I’m all about tolerance, whether it comes to religion, color, sexual preference, or anything else that makes us stand out as individuals. One thing I cannot tolerate, however, is intolerance.

I feel that organized religion, as well as our government is, by and large, intolerant and even afraid of minorities. It’s sad that our human race has existed for so long and (as a majority) we still can’t sensibly and peacefully resolve differences with those who are unlike ourselves.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Dr Martin Luther King, Jr