Florida Bishop Plans to Introduce Canon Prohibiting Ordination of Homosexuals
Episcopal News Service. October 10, 1990 [90260]
A week after he returned from the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in Washington, Bishop John Howe of Central Florida announced his intention to take the issue of ordaining homosexuals to next year's General Convention.
In an open letter to his diocese, Howe said the House of Bishops "settled nothing." He announced plans to submit a resolution to turn a 1979 General Convention resolution declaring that it is "not appropriate for this church to ordain a practicing homosexual" into a canon law of the church.
"It is my hope that in so doing we can once again make it very clear that we do believe the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, that we understand them to speak very clearly regarding our sexual behavior, especially for those in Christian leadership, and with God's help we do intend to pattern our lives and our ministry accordingly," Howe wrote in his September 26 letter, which was published on the front page of the October issue of the diocesan newspaper, the Central Florida Episcopalian.
Howe's resolution will seek to insert in Title III Canon 8 a new sentence: "It is not permitted to ordain any person advocating or engaging in, willfully and habitually, homosexual relations or heterosexual relations outside of marriage."
The change is necessary, Howe contends, because the 80-76 vote by the House of Bishops to "disassociate" itself from last December's ordination of a noncelibate homosexual by the bishop of Newark didn't settle the issue. Howe pointed out that "the vote can be interpreted in a variety of ways since technically it was a vote to 'affirm and support' the statement issued on February 20th by the Presiding Bishop and his Council of Advice."
While some said that the action was redundant, others "saw the vote as indicative of the unwillingness of nearly half the bishops of this church to declare homosexual activity a lifestyle that cannot be commended as 'a wholesome example to the flock,"' Howe said.