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.

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.

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.

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.

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