The New Yorker (4/17) has an article outlining the possible schism in the Anglican Church (we say Episcopalian) over homosexuality. The irony of the situation is that this most ‘veddy, veddy proper’ of the Protestant Christian denominations has been historically structured to avoid such a problem: believe practically anything you want, just don’t fight and don’t leave the Anglican communion. But the election of openly gay American Bishop Gene Robinson ran smack up against African Anglicans’ homophobia. With the help of some conservative American Episcopalian congregations, this may finally break up the world-wide communion. Bishop Peter Akinola, the archbishop of Nigeria, has said he cannot fathom the sexual union of two men and that ‘even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don’t hear of such things.’ (But, ahem, many, many scientists have heard such.) Robinson counters that Akinola ‘says homosexuals are lower than dogs’ and that Akinola and other people ‘… don’t realize … that homosexuality is something that I am, it’s not something that I do.’ By the way, Robinson’s real given name, Vicky Gene, is not from any parental camp sensibility but from the fact that when he was born badly mangled and thought to be dying, his parents left him with the name of the girl they expected.
— Jim Edminster