Episcopalians consider freeze on gay bishops
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 5, 2006

U.S. Episcopal leaders will try to safeguard their membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion by holding back, at least until 2008, on electing new homosexual bishops and on allowing same-sex unions, according to two Episcopal bishops.

Church leaders are even considering "repentance" for the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, an active homosexual, according to Arizona Bishop Kirk S. Smith.

He and Rio Grande Bishop Jeffrey Steenson divulged these details in e-mails to their dioceses describing a March 17-22 summit of Episcopal bishops in western North Carolina.

"Very considerable caution" will be used in electing more homosexual bishops, Bishop Smith said in his March 24 e-mail, "until a wider consensus emerges." Bishop Smith is identified with the church's liberal wing; Bishop Steenson is a conservative.

There is no consensus in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion, where 22 Anglican provinces have partially or totally severed relations with the Episcopal Church over its 2003 consecration of Bishop Robinson, a divorced man living with his homosexual lover. the rest