As we await the decision, or judgment, or pronouncement, of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop [TLC, March 17], speculation is rife over how the judges might respond. Very few persons expect the court to rule that the Episcopal Church has a doctrine concerning the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals. If the court rules there is no such doctrine, or if it decides it is not the body to determine doctrine and sends the matter to General Convention, there is the likelihood that each diocese will have to make that determination. Each diocesan bishop, with input from commissions on ministry and standing committees, will decide whether to ordain non-celibate homosexuals.

Such a prospect sounds very much like the state of affairs following the 1976 General Convention, which determined women could be ordained as priests and bishops. Diocesan bishops decided whether to ordain women, and that has continued to the present.

The comparison between ordination of women and ordination of homosexuals was not lost on Bishop Walter Righter, the defendant in the presentment trial. "There is a connection between the ordination of women and this," he said following the hearing in Delaware. "Misogyny and homophobia go together." If Bishop Righter is correct, the outcome of the trial and the manner in which the church deals with ordination of non-celibate homosexuals in the future is quite predictable.