From here:
Bishop Gene Robinson, whose 2003 election as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop rocked Anglican Communion, has announced his divorce from his longtime partner and husband.
[….]
“As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for us — not a decision entered into lightly or without much counseling,” Robinson wrote in a letter. “We ask for your prayers, that the love and care for each other that has characterized our relationship for a quarter century will continue in the difficult days ahead.”
Why, I wonder, is the other partner in an all male marriage often referred to as the “husband”, yielding a relationship with two husbands? Why isn’t one of them a wife? The word “husband” comes from the Old Norse word hūsbōndi, meaning “master of a house”. The muddle is undoubtedly a corollary of the more profound confusion of two men pretending to be married: a marriage can’t have two men and a house can’t have two masters.
Question: Will the Rt Rev Gene Robinson now remain celibate, or is he likely to be on the hunt for a new partner? Given his first name, he was probably the “wife” in his “marriage
2nd divorce for a bishop 1st is bishop ingham
well, as an anglican, what do you expect?
the stress over the changes have been bad
It will be interesting to see if the Anglican Journal will report this, and how they will frame this news story.
Poor Gene Robinson. First he thought he was heterosexual, and married a woman. When that failed, he found it easy (?) to form a new relationship, though with a male. (Thus, explaining away why his first marriage failed). During this time, he also was living and working as an Anglican priest. He was able to use his private life in his public life, claiming he was a new type of person ( a new Christian? a prophet perhaps??). And now, as he enters into old age, things fall apart again, and he is back to where he was when his first marriage broke up.
But, let’s not feel too sorry for him He has managed to live off the Episcopal Church, earning a middle-class salary. I expect he owns his own home, and he has a comfortable pension. So, in term of material wealth, he has lived a successful life. But he has been fooled by the Spirit of this Age, the Spirit of contemporary culture. Robinson is still living as an adolescent, still in the 1960’s. He is basically living the ethic :If it feels good, do it. And so, his Christainity is a shallow, hollow one of conventionality, of outer show. What he had faith in, was in having a middle-class lifestyle. Perhaps we can end with Galatians 6.7 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corrutpion; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Flesh here means living a conventional, middle-class life style, a life approved by the world.
David: It is interesting for you to suggest the meaning of the word “flesh” or “sinful nature” as American “middle-class life-style”.
“First he thought he was heterosexual […]”
Yes. I’m sure that’s exactly how it happened.
What else would you expect from a pig but a grunt?
I find the accompanying photo very striking. Pink marriage commissioner between black partners. How entirely odd.