The Rev. Judith Gentle-Hardy [TLC, Oct. 18] has placed herself in a position whose manifold ironies become downright ludicrous given her oblivion to them.

She, and those whom she has rallied in her congregation, are trumpeting their orthodoxy through a mouthpiece which they would not possess but for a recent and still debated revisionist convulsion in the church. Someone needs to call their bluff.

As would the traditionalist bishops elsewhere in the Anglican Communion to whose opinion she appeals. Most of these deem her priestly credentials null and void; whereas homosexuality in a priest, however much they may detest it, would provoke no such verdict. Nor, as anyone knows who has been in and around the church very long, is it an innovation for clergy to have same-sex partners.

Inasmuch as many gay apologists in the church have supported the ordination of women and the use of non-sexist language, her initiative betrays tactical allies. I for one, while disappointed, am hardly surprised. We might have seen this turn of events 20 years off.

Far from toeing any identifiable orthodox line, Ms. Gentle-Hardy and her adherents are wandering off into an amorphous and subjective protestant hall of mirrors. They are welcome to it. If my every impulse to reach out intimately to others must draw scolds and stigmas in the name of orthodoxy, pardon me if I at least choose to receive them from those whose own orthodoxy is less bogus.

Paul Emmons

West Chester, Pa.