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Loading ...Episcopal conservatives win key battle over gays
12.22.2008 10:42am EST
(McLean, Virginia) Nearly a dozen conservative church congregations in Virginia have won a lawsuit in which they sought to split from the U.S. Episcopal Church in a dispute over theology and homosexuality.
The final rulings came from a Fairfax County judge who said the departing congregations are allowed under Virginia law to keep their church buildings and other property as they leave the Episcopal Church and realign under the authority of conservative Anglican bishops from Africa.Several previous rulings had also gone in favor of the departing congregations. The diocese said it will appeal.
Eleven Virginia congregations were involved in the lawsuit, including two prominent congregations that trace their histories to George Washington – Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church.
The congregations voted to realign in late 2006. Since then, the rift in the Episcopal Church has grown, and entire dioceses have voted to leave the denomination. Similar property disputes are expected there as well.
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia argued it was the true owner of the church property and that the congregations’ votes to leave the Episcopal Church were invalid.
The case was decided under a Civil War-era law unique to Virginia, which stated that when a division occurs within a particular denomination, a congregation can vote to decide with which branch it wishes to affiliate.
In earlier rulings, Circuit Judge Randy Bellows declared that a division had indeed occurred within the Episcopal Church, and that Virginia’s law was constitutional.
It was widely anticipated that the departing congregations would prevail after those preliminary rulings were issued; Friday’s rulings dealt largely with technical questions related to property deeds and the like.
The Episcopal Diocese contends that Virginia’s law is unconstitutional because it requires a judge to wade into theological issues and thus violates First Amendment protections guaranteeing freedom of religion.
“Within the Episcopal Church, we may have theological disagreements, but those disagreements are ours to resolve according to the rules of our own governance,” said the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, Episcopal bishop of Virginia.
Whether the decision in the Virginia case is indicative of what will happen nationally is doubtful. Even leaders in the departing congregations acknowledge that the judge’s rulings turned on interpretation of a statute unique to Virginia.
Valerie Munson, assistant director of the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, said property disputes tend to be fact-specific and state laws governing them vary greatly.
Still, she said lawyers will look closely at Bellows’ various rulings for specific points that might be persuasive in cases across the country.
Jim Oakes, vice chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia, an organization formed by the departing congregations said he thinks the ruling will be “encouraging to other orthodox congregations across the country.”
The 2003 ordination by the Episcopal Church of an openly gay bishop set off a wide-ranging debate within the church, with conservative congregations saying that the church had abandoned traditional teachings not just on homosexuality but other key theological issues.
The Episcopal Church, with about 2.1 million members in the U.S., is the American body of the Anglican Communion, with about 77 million members worldwide.
Fine, let these pathetic congregations have their temples to their own ego. They are on the wrong side of history and that is all that will ultimately matter.
Most of those departing Virginia churches have not been mainstream Anglican for a very long time. The law cited was PASSED so that southern segregationist Episcopal churches could leave the General Convention and keep their properties.
Theologically, most of them are still segregationist – Calvinist – congregationalists.
I find it FASCINATING that they have aligned themselves with heretical, schismatic black African bishops, though, as someone once explained to me, they’re only prejudiced against AMERICAN blacks, not AFRICAN blacks with cultured English accents (!).
At issue is not so much the properties of these particular parishes, but the BILLIONS in endowments of OTHER parishes, like Trinity Church, Wall Street, which owns most of the land in lower Manhattan.
THAT’S the REAL prize, and, oh, did I mention, NONE of this has to do with FAITH *or* homosexuality?
It’s all about money and raw, naked POWER.
Gotta love those Virginia “kristianists” (NOT!).
Cheers,
Bud Burgoon-Clark
San Diego CA USA
If this wasn’t primarily a dispute over property, I’d say let the ignorant pricks go and celebrate in their own way. The US embraces freedom of religion, so they should be free to practice their faith in whatever manner they want and under whatever banner they want.
However, the property in question does not belong to them. It belongs to the US Episcopal Church and should remain their property. If these people want to leave the US Episcopal Church then they should be free to do so, but they don’t get to have their cake and eat it.
I’m pleased to see the Church fighting them on this. At the very least, if they want to crawl away and celebrate their bigotry they should be made to pay to do so, and ideally they should be made to buy/build their own damn churches in which to do it. Anything less is rewarding their ignorance and disloyalty.
Right on Bud! These selfsame churches were most likely the ones that banned Blacks from their pews for centuries. The irony of their being part of an African Anglican communion couldn’t be more fitting.
So many blame gays for the break up of the ECUSA. Certainly, the dispute over theology and homosexuality and the election of Bishop Robinson played some role. The finial straw for most of these groups was the election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop. Some of the break away congregations and diocese don’t recognize the ordination of women and eight diocese in the US reject her authority as primate .
Good riddance. 90 to95% of the US Episcopal church will stay together, and under the leadership of what lots of the old times said never, never, never – a woman.
And the whole battle really is about male dominance, not equality for gay people – that is just a spin off. And if you look at what has happened to society re women – I worked for a woman in a marketing dept back in 1969 and remember thinking it was odd – the same thing will happen for gay people as well. Most of the prejudice will go away with time and the good riddance death of the old guard generation, living in the past when religion kept mankind totally enslaved for a 1000 years of the dark ages.
But everyone has to be OUT, and active, and remember part of the battle is intimidating the dumb religious freaks into their own closet, where they dare not speak out for fear of being exposed for what they are.
I live 3 miles from the Falls Church – it is a SHAME that they have won this case. My husband is a 3rd generation Episcopalian and is just amazed at what has happened. This is an insult to the Episcopal Churches that have had to hold services in spaces across the street from the church that is rightly theirs! What a sad day to see this – of course our marriage isn’t recognized in VA – seems to me VA has a LONG way to go on a lot of legal issues!
I say good riddance to the “Conservative Church’s” but I also think that it is vindictive of them to make an play around the official Church policy and system or run to keep the Church property they occupy. If they where to be truly honorable (a laugh in this situation) they would aline with the foreign disses and form their own new church leaving the existing one to those what don’t share their view. That is what happened in my church, all the money conservatives split off and form their own congregation. (bad in the sotrt turm but heck, with them gone it migh be good in the long run.)
Who really gives a damn what these religious fanatics do? They believe in talking donkeys. They drink make-believe blood. They insane.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) | Jan 5, 2:25 PM
The state’s high court has prohibited three Southern California parishes who left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay ministers from retaining ownership of their church buildings and property.
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that the property belongs to the Episcopal church because the parishes agreed to abide by the mother church’s rules, which includes specific language about property ownership.
St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood pulled out of the 2.1 million member national Episcopal Church in 2004 and sought to retain property ownership.
Since 2003, four dioceses and dozens of individual churches have split, setting off bitter legal feuds over division of property.
@ Trace:
IN-teresting. St. James in Newport Beach just built a new multi-million-dollar church, I’m sure fully expecting to retain ownership when they left to join the Nigerians.
An amusing aside: the first “rector” appointed *after* they left was subsequently removed (and unfrocked?) for committing adultery with his (presumably female) secretary.
Sex, power, and money … gotta love those dissident Anglicans (NOT!)(chuckle).
Bud Burgoon-Clark
“retired” Organist/Choirmaster
St. Matthew’s Anglican Catholic Church
Newport Beach CA
PS-after two strokes and two heart attacks, I decided the beautiful music and liturgy didn’t balance out the obnoxious anti-gay conservative politics spouted from the pulpit by one of the most self-centered, cruel, unfit, clueless and egotistical priests it has ever been my misfortune to work for.