Glasspool is in the eye of an Anglican storm

The newly elected assistant bishop in Los Angeles has become a symbol of hope for gays in the national church but a portent of doom for traditionalists worried about their denomination unraveling.
By Duke Helfand
December 11, 2009

In the space of a week, Mary Glasspool has gone from being an obscure priest in Baltimore to the emblem of a growing international tempest over gay bishops in the Episcopal Church.

The lesbian priest with salt-and-pepper hair -- one of two newly elected suffragan, or assistant, bishops in Los Angeles -- has become a potent symbol of hope for gays in the national church but a portent of doom for traditionalists worried about their denomination unraveling.

Ask Glasspool, 55, about her central role in the turbulence that has drawn the disapproving eye of the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, and she offers a lament: The struggle for gay rights in the church has never been her primary mission, she says, even as she speaks proudly of her 22-year relationship with her partner, social worker Becki Sander. the rest

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