Bishop "Skip" Adams Justifies His Homosexual Vote

Episcopal balloting on gays and ministry "not really a big move," he said.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
By Renée K. Gadoua
Staff writer

The local Episcopal bishop said a denominational vote affirming that gay men...and lesbians are eligible for "any ordained ministry" doesn't change church policy, but makes transparent its support for homosexual members.

"It's not really a big move," Bishop Gladstone "Skip" Adams said Wednesday from the Anaheim, Calif., conference.

"It does not change anything," he said. "Our ordination process is already open to any baptized person. Sexual orientation has not been named as an automatic inhibition to the ordination process."

Adams and the Central New York lay and clergy deputations voted "yes" to the potentially divisive resolution, which also reaffirms the church's membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. province.

The House of Bishops voted 99-45 to adopt the resolution, known as D025. Lay people voted 78-21; clergy voted 77-19, to approve the statement.

According to the resolution passed Tuesday, dioceses may consider gay candidates as bishops but does not mandate that they do so.

At its triennial meeting in 2006, the church approved a resolution widely interpreted as a moratorium on consecrating gay bishops in the wake of fallout from the 2003 consecration of the church's first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Adams said the "restraint" called for in consecrating gay bishops in the 2006 statement can coexist with this week's passage of the statement on gay clergy.

"They exist together," Adams said. "We're willing to live in the midst of ambiguity, which is where most of life is lived."

He said he voted for the resolution because his understanding of Scripture means "being accepting of all, and I mean all."

Since 2003, three parishes in the local diocese have withdrawn from the denomination over issues of scriptural interpretation and sexuality. He said there are individual clergy and lay people who disagree with him on the issue, but he knows of no other local congregations planning to secede from the Episcopal Church.

He concedes that some people may have preferred the conference not make such a direct statement on gay men and lesbians.

"That's what people wanted us to do in the civil rights movement," he said. "One must not be quiet." link