When you consider the heterosexual divorce rate, you almost have to think he's making sense.
However, since homosexual relationship stats (breakup, abuse, "infidelity") are even worse than heterosexuals', you also have to think he's either uninformed or blowing smoke.
Anglican Bishop Peter Coffin has allowed a married lesbian to work as a priest in Ottawa, incurring the wrath of a small but vociferous group of conservatives within the Anglican diocese.
One church has withheld about $36,000 of its dues to the the diocese in protest and several clergy signed an open letter denouncing their bishop.
The letter said Bishop Coffin reneged on the spirit of the Anglican church’s national moratorium on same-sex unions by allowing Rev. Linda Privitera to work as a priest at St. John the Evangelist on Elgin Street. Rev. Privitera is an American citizen, ordained and married in Massachusetts, who came to Canada with her partner in November.
Bishop Coffin has honoured the moratorium that suspended any church blessing of same-sex unions, but he says: “I cannot see (homosexuality) as a sin. … We have swept this under the carpet and made people live in fear and in silence.”
“I may be called a liberal and unorthodox,” Bishop Coffin said in an e-mail to the Citizen. “But I firmly believe that people need to be treated with respect and dignity and that loving someone faithfully and in total commitment until death do them part is a blessing regardless of sexual orientation.”
With that statement, Bishop Coffin has placed himself firmly on one side of a debate, which is dividing Anglicans worldwide, over what it means to be Christian. The struggle could crack the church apart as liberals and conservatives increasingly see each other as veering into sin, and raise the alarms against each other accordingly.