The Anglican Church’s ‘Kick in the Guts’ to Gay Parishioners
nytimes.comWELLINGTON, New Zealand — Craig Watson has spent his life searching for a church that accepts him fully as a gay man. After having left the Baptist church, Mr.
Watson thought he had found it within the famously progressive Anglican faith in New Zealand. Then came what Mr. Watson called a “kick in the guts.” In late July Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and global leader of the Anglican Church (known in the United States as the Episcopal Church), affirmed as church policy a 1998 statement that rejects “homosexual practice as inconsistent with scripture.” “We are looking for allies,” Mr.
Watson said, “and they are not an ally.” Divisions over the acceptance of homosexuality have raised doubts about whether the Anglican Church can remain united, a conflict that has played out both on a global level and inside even liberal-leaning countries like New Zealand, where some Anglicans have broken away to preserve traditional teaching.
These tensions have pulled at the Anglican Church, which has 85 million members worldwide, for decades. In 2003, the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated V.
