And now for something infinitely lighter. Way too light, in fact.

Kinda worn out from all the emotion of the afternoon, just settled in with the knowledge of our gay bishop for a relaxing meal with two hours of gay reality TV. Unfortunately, Queer Eye had not started, so I plunged into Boy Meets Boy. So annoying. I'm embarrassed to still be watching, but can't turn away ...

{This trash definitely doesn't deserve the space on my home page, though, so click here if you're an addict like me and want to hear me trash it.} And the full post ends like this:

What an embarrassment. Really breeders, homos are not all this shallow. Just check out those Queer guys. Or that bishop. Thank you Lord, for that bishop. And I remember now what you told us: The lord giveth . . .

The marriage stuff I take personally. Sodomite, sure. Faggit, definitely. But this bishop thing, I was just excited the past couple weeks to see another step in our acceptance. I was only thinking in terms of a struggle for the movement. I wasn't feeling a personal stake in it directly.

But it's been a little over an hour and a half since I got the news, and something unexpected has been happening. I'm starting to feel like a Christian again. Seriously. Writing through my thoughts on the pope and the bible and the primacy of my own conscience helped a lot. (And I can't help snickering at a Catholic hero helping me find my freedom from the misguided Romans to follow him.)

But the elation has passed, and now it feels more like . . . affection? Comfort? Like we're part of the family again. (I know I wrote that in the first few lines of the post below, but I've been adding to that as new thoughts strike me, and that one only arrived there a minute and a half ago.) We're still a lifetime or more away of getting let in to the Roman family I came from, but they're not kidding anybody about being the "one true catholic and apostolic church." They're just one sizeable chunk of the much bigger church of Christians, and one corner of that has finally let us inside. Not just as a member, but a leader.

It's OK. It's OK to be gay, and we can finally filter back in to where we came from. One little church at a time.

(More later, but I haven't eaten since 11 a.m. and I'm losing the energy to man the keyboard.)

GAY BISHOP RATIFIED!

It's true! It's true!

Finally, a bishop of our very own. We're finally part of the family. I dont' know how many cliches I've got in me, feeling like I'm just bursting at the seams with them.

Suddenly the past month, it's feeling like we can really achieve equality in our lifetime. (Maybe).

Headline News reported the latest milestone at exactly 8 p.m. Eastern time. (Right after the commercial.) Sixty-two of the 107 votes in the House of Bishops were in favor. Stories from Reuters, Voice of America, ABC, Newsday . . . (more coming)

Wow. We finally have a gay bishop of a mainline church--who is admitting he's gay and being raised up into the leadership regardless.

The Episcopal church is not so big in the U.S., but quite extensive outside it, in places that remain a bit behind us in attitudes toward homos. (It is part of the 77-million member Anglican Communion.) It could have a big effect there.

And larger U.S. denominations have been struggling with the same question for years, particularly the Methodists and Presbyterians. (And I actually know a Presbyterian, though not an actual presbyter.) They all keep chickening out, and it's always a lot easier once somebody else has taken the plunge. Of course it will be a lifetime or two for my Catholics to get it, but I'll be happy if they just let the women out of the doghouse before I die.)

Meanwhile, conservative Anglican elements have been threatening a schism if Robinson were ratified. (They were going to begin by walking out to pray at a Lutheran church across the street. Lutheran!--What next?)

We'll see how that plays out. Really interesting discussion of the very real moral dilemma the two sides were facing on NPR's Talk of the Nation today. Both the pro- and con-Robinson guests agreed that the schism would probably be minor, though. They said similar dissent wracked the church after ordination of women, institution of the new prayer book and a few other changes this century, but little became of them. (And TOTN has a timeline of the development of Christianity, Judaism and Islam here.)

Phyllis Tickle was particularly insightful on the show. (She is contributing editor in religion at Publisher's Weekly and author of a few books, including The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape.) She made a compelling case that the gay-bishop issue was to some degree a stand-in for the much broader and far more important battle between literal interpretations of every word of the bible vs what she called "progressive revelation." She described progressive revelation as the concept that the truth shall be revealed as humanity is ready to receive it.

Interesting. I'm sure the concept is well known in theological circles, but was news to me. It names an idea I think I've believed my whole life, though: That when God was speaking to people just emerging from caves, he was giving them a much simpler guidebook than when they were starting to experiment with planting crops and forging plows, which was still simpler than when they organized into cities, built nations, invented steam engines, laid railroads, left the planet . . . I know my bible-church friends would disagree passionately, because they believe God really did reveal the whole thing all at once, for every culture in every time to understand the same words. I've always thought of Him as a little smarter than that.

I understand why homosexuality was banned at the time of Leviticus. Hygiene was a life or death issue at that point, and sex with your anus, that was just asking for trouble. Same thing with spoiled seafood trichinosis in pork, and many of the other Levitican prohibitions. But homosexuality presented bigger problems than pork: The Australian Prime Minister's lingering fears for the survival of the species was not just very real back then, it was the paramount concern. Now, we're facing the opposite problem on procreation. Now, the whole fabric of society is different. The whole conceivable universe of ethical dilemmas is different. I think I'm only exaggerating a little when I say that I have less in common with one of Abraham's early Israelites than that Israelite had with a caveman.

Is it an exaggeration at all? It wouldn't be hard to make a case that the fairly simple choices available to both of them were more similar in kind than the dilemmas we face today. It was only in the last hundred years or two that many people had the choice of doing anything but toiling in a wheatfield. My people came over from Ireland just over a hundred years ago. I have little doubt that my line is peasantry more or less all the way back to Adam. I was born Catholic because my parents were, because a long line of peasants before them believed as they were told.

Today, I am free to pursue nearly any vocation I choose. I have infinitely more choices and a whole different set of challenges and ethical quandries. I don't think it makes any sense to operate out of the simple rulebook handed down to cavemen or their successors. The Creator I look up to thought things through a little farther than that.

On the Talk of the Nation show, Larry Cunningham, Professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, brought the esteemed Catholic hero known by the unwieldy title Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman into the debate. He quoted the venerable cardinal's famous last line from his landmark Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (December 27, 1874). Cunningham was taking a different tack with the quote, but I think he unwittingly played right into Tickle's wider point about progressive revelation:

"I shall drink, —to the Pope, if you please, —still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.”

I don't think Newman was talking just about popes. I think God is still guiding us along with new insights every day, and we need to look inside to our own hearts to hear them. (To hear Him, if you prefer.) I look at that ancient book on the table and I see a lot of wisdom. But I think He expects a lot more out of me than just following a rulebook written as instruction manual for goat farmers. I shall drink, —to the Bible, if you please, —still, to conscience first, and to the Bible afterwards.

CNN Headline news is reporting live right now. At 6:43 Eastern time, the reporter on the scene said debate had just ended, and they were beginning 15 minutes of prayer. Then they would begin to vote by paper ballot. The reporter is estimating an answer around 8 p.m.

I will monitor and post results here immediately. It will be several minutes for the wire stories to post--I'll link to them then.

I will monitor and post results here immediately. It will be several minutes for the wire stories to post--I'll link to them then.

UPDATE:

THE RESULTS ARE IN -- ANNOUNCEMENT SOON.

CNN Headline news keeps changing their mind on when they expect results. (I know it's not their fault, but it's still maddening.)  

I am standing by the television.

(I have been standing by the television for well over an hour now, and do you people owe me. It has been tuned to CNN Headline the entire time, and these newsmodels behind the "anchor" desk make Diane Sawyer look like . . . a journalist! I don't think even the local "news"casters are this insufferable.

You know touchers: those people who don't just shake your hand when they shake your hand, they also reach forward with the left and grip your forearm? Or they put their hand on your shoulder when they talk to you?

Jocks are well known for this--the kind who are very straight and very comfortable with their sexuality, and aren't afraid to touch a guy. (And know the difference between a grope and a touch.) Salesmen are known for it as well. And caregivers: some doctors, a whole lot of clergy.

Most people respond really well to it, and I think most of us actually wish we felt a little more comfortable doing it a bit more, but are a little shy about some contact and hold back.

Some people hate it. They don't like anyone touching them at all. They see it as a boundary violation. But most of them realize there are more touchers than frigids out there and it is more of their problem than the touchers'. If they don't like it, they know how to speak up.

I wondered if this whole fake scandal about Bishop Robinson could possibly just be nothing more than an accusation that he was a toucher. Kind of sounded like it could be from the vagueness of the acusation, but surely . . . Surely!

From AP story (and much longer excerpts from the official report here):

[Investigating Bishop Gordon] Scruton said he spoke with [acuser] Lewis by phone Monday afternoon and Lewis told him that, at a public church event in November 1999, Robinson "put his left hand on the individual's arm and his right hand on the individual's upper back" as Robinson answered a question Lewis had asked.

Scruton said the other encounter occurred when Lewis turned to make a comment to Robinson and the clergyman "touched the individual's forearm and back while responding with his own comment."

Unbelievable. Bishop Gene Robinson is a toucher. (And Robinson touched him in broad daylight, in public, at a church gathering.) So freaking what?

Here's what:

Those conservative "men of God" who pushed both these faux scandals really need to go home and rethink their devotion to the creed they claim to be supporting. This was disgraceful.

And both charges were pushed by conservative church leaders. I heard an NPR reporter describe several times today how they called her at 11 p.m. Sunday night trying to get her to break the story, saying that it would look a lot better coming from her than them. (Yeah, no kidding.) She could not reach the accuser and had no way to substantiate the allegations, so she held back, and they went forward themselves on Monday. (NPR also reported that CNN was approached the same night.)

Do Episcopalians have confession? When are these guys lining up?

And then we come to the slimy performance of Fred Barnes and the Weekly Standard on the periphery of all this. Barnes, executive editor of the Standard, and supposed supporter of family values, was pushing the other phony 11th-hour "scandal" attempting to subvert the will of the Episcopal church. He posted this irresponsible story on the conservative mag's website at 2:48 p.m. Monday, leading with a paragraph of heavy insinuation and half-truths that took the church all of 24 hours to dismiss with this statement:

The questions about Robinson's role in a Web site for a group he founded that contained links to pornography showed Robinson's involvement with the group ended four years before the Web site was created.

Funny how Barnes couldn't crack that conundrum. Surely he realized how bogus it was, but spread it anyway to undermine the character of a new bishop, in order to deny his appointment. Nice values Fred.

(And the website accusation may be turning out to be even more bogus. CNN's reporter Jeff Flock is also saying on CNN Headline at this very moment that the Barnes' explicit charge--he wrote "Outright had a link to a pornographic website"--is not true. (Flock is not naming Barnes, just straightening out the facts.) He says the site did NOT link to a porn site (horrors! anyway). Here is his description: "He had a connection to an organization that had a website, that if you clicked on that website, then clicked on several other links, it took you to another website to another website, eventually you got a pornographic website." Oh, brother. If Flock turns out to be correct--and I assume he is working off the latest information--the charge will really be ludicrous. And despicable. I would venture a guess that most sites on the web are two to three degrees of separation from a porn site. Next we're going to learn he has a hairdresser that has a cousin that subscribes to Hustler!

The horror.

---

Update: Just found this great editorial in the Min Star-Trib, Robinson Ambush/Anatomy of a Smear:

The phony accusation that Robinson was linked somehow to porn on the Web was easy to track down. It was a deliberate, calculated lie, apparently held in reserve until the last minute in case the first vote, in the House of Deputies, went against those opposed to Robinson's elevation to bishop -- which it did on Sunday.

... the smear is an issue for the larger community as well, for it demonstrates just how low some people will stoop when honest, reasonable debate is going against them. ...

Years ago, Robinson helped organize the Concord, N.H., chapter of Outright, a group that, essentially, ministers to young gay and lesbian people. He has had little contact with the group in recent years, and had nothing to do with its Web site, as the group has confirmed.

At Outright Web site that Robinson had nothing to do with, you find links to nine Outright groups in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. One or more of them once had a link to bisexual.org, a support site for bisexual people. At bisexual.org, in the bottom left corner, is a link to "3 pillows."

If you click that link, you get a bisexual.org splash screen telling you that "Three Pillows is the net's premiere site for bisexual erotica." If you click the link in this window, you get a Three Pillows warning page: "Warning -- Adult Content Ahead! You must be over 18 to proceed. Three Pillows contains adult erotica of a bisexual nature."

If you click the "Enter" link, you get a fairly explicit page with the naughtiest bits blanked out. To actually see the explicit stuff, you must become a member and pay for the privilege.

That's, what, seven clicks and a Visa card from the Outright page that Robinson had nothing to do with? As one online wag said, you can get from the conservative Weekly Standard to porn in just two clicks: to Salon, then to porn. Frankly, porn is much closer than seven clicks to Startribune.com as well. Everything on the Web is a few clicks away from porn; that's the Web.

The Weekly Standard is important in this. Executive Editor Fred Barnes gave the Robinson story a major boost -- after it was shopped to other news outlets that refused to bite -- when he posted information about the controversy on the magazine's Web site Monday. Barnes asserted that, "Episcopalian bishop-elect Gene Robinson has some curious affiliations," meaning the porn Web site.

No he doesn't, but Barnes does. He's not simply a journalist in this; he's a conservative Episcopalian of outspoken views who sits on the board of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. ... Robinson appears guilty of nothing at all -- save being a gay man who wants to be a bishop. For some, unfortunately, that is enough to justify all sorts of innuendo and dirty tricks. Be warned: This is the way they play.

End of a short-lived, ill-advised smear campaign.

From Reuters:

Tue August 5, 2003 05:21 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Episcopal church leaders on Tuesday dismissed allegations of sexual misconduct against New Hampshire's openly gay bishop-elect, clearing the way for a vote by church bishops that is likely to approve his installation.

The results of an investigation of Canon Gene Robinson were announced just one day after the bishops suddenly delayed their vote amid allegations he touched a Vermont parishioner inappropriately.

Massachusetts Bishop Gordon Scruton, who led the investigation, told the bishops that the parishioner, David Lewis, described the touching to him but it did not appear to be sexual in nature and Lewis did not want to press charges.

The questions about Robinson's role in a Web site for a group he founded that contained links to pornography showed Robinson's involvement with the group ended four years before the Web site was created.

I just a second Dean TV appearance in under 24 hours (just finished the Tivo of the Today Show interview from this morning. (Watch it here.)

Wow, I am really liking this guy.

Here's the confession: For a few weeks now, I had been starting to wonder if I had just gotten caught up in the frenzy. I'd only met him in person that once, hardly seen him on TV at all. Was it just infatuation? Did I just catch him on a good day? Friends kept asking why I admired him so much--why so many people did; what's all this Dean thing all about?--and I was starting to hesitate more and more with my answer. 

Now I remember. I tend to agree with most of his positions. That's a good start. But the fact is, I don't agree with him on everything. But I can't remember one issue he addressed where I didn't think he made a reasonable case, and where I believed he believed it. Essentially, I like the way his mind works. There's no telling what threats or challenges we'll face once he or somebody else is in charge, but whatever comes up, I feel secure with him calling the shots.

And I LOVE his candor and honesty. And I would trust that guy to sit in the oval office.

And I would actually be proud of him. Last guy I even came close to being proud of was George senior, of all people. I didn't really want him running the country, but I had a lot of respect for that guy. I was never embarrassed by him. Can't say that about either successor.

I have been wondering what I would do if Clark jumps in. The truth is, I have always figured I would probably bolt for his camp. But I'm starting to wonder. I'd like to see them both for awhile, and to judge who has a chance of actually winning the nomination, and the general election. (My instinct on the latter is Clark, but we have yet to see the man campaign.) God, they sure would make a dream team, with either one on top.

For now, I'm falling more and more firmly in line with Dean. I can't wait to be proud of my president again.

I just got an email from Arianna Huffington--along with thousands of other subscribers to her column. She says she has taken two weeks off from her column to do the prelim work on a run for governor of California. And she is announcing her decision tomorrow morning at 10:30 (pacific time, I assume), at A Place Called Home in South Central LA.

You're all invited. It's on the corner of 29th and Central. Email me if you'd like directions. (Seriously. She provided two versions: From the Westside and From the South Bay Area. So I think she's serious about you stopping by.)

More on her campaign at runariannarun.com, which looks like it will be the official website (she's personally directing people to it). And you can join her mailing list there to get regular updates and cut me out of the picture. I'll try to stay on top of the campaign.

I'm officially endorsing her. Heeheehee. But seriously, I am all for her, just snickering at the ridiculousness of me making an endorsement. Apparently anyone is eligible to do that now.

I'm spending a lot of time down at the Air Force Academy again--just got back after a full morning there, and it's quite interesting. And very different than I think most civilians imagine.

So as I work on some magazine pieces about it, I'm going to start posting some of my observations here, pretty regularly, if all goes well.

Leaders of the Episcopal church have already finished their investigation of the church's first openly gay bishop-elect, and will vote on final ratification this afternoon. AP reports that he was apparently cleared. NPR said to expect an announcement of the verdict around 6 p.m. Eastern time.

I'll try to have the results up as soon as they are announced.

This is my favorite argument about gay marriage.

'Gay nuptials threaten species survival'

Canberra - Australia's conservative prime minister on Tuesday aligned himself with the Vatican and United States President George Bush in ruling out gay marriages, saying they did nothing to support the "survival of the species".

Prime Minister John Howard, who has three children from his 32-year marriage, said that while he respected people's sexual preferences, those calling for gay marriages to be legitimised did not understand what marriage meant.

"It's a bedrock institution," Howard told The Courier-Mail newspaper. "You're talking here about the survival of the species."

You know a guy is right in touch with actual activity on this planet when they start worrying that survival now depends on producing enough humans.

Watch tonight, after around 10. You can't miss it.

I've never seen anything like it in the sky.

More later.

The biggest surprise to me in the lame Newsweek cover story on Dean was that Joe Biden and Wes Clark were leaning toward jumping in.

I'd heard the rumblings, but was guessing they would go the other way. There's a new story out of Deleware in Tuesday's paper that makes me think he's going to go for it. It's nothing firm coming from him, and I could misreading it, it's so hard to read these things. The sense I got though, was that he may well believe he has an opening. The expected "major" candidates have fizzled: Gephardt and Lieberman are languishing, John Edwards is nearly invisible. Kerry is the only "major" candidate making any mark, and he's been lost in Dean's shadow for weeks and not really showing much charisma. Aside from Dean, it has proven to be a weak field.

And I think they all still think Dean is weak. They're perplexed by his popularity, and Biden probably thinks he can knock Dean off. Good luck! There are people out there who could turn the country's head from Dean, but I don't think Joe Biden is one of them. He's got more charisma than a John Kerry for sure, but I don't think he's going to steal anyone's hear. He didn't do that well in 1988 even before he slithered away in humiliation after his plagiarism came to light.

I do think he'll make the race interesting, though. I think he'll race to the front of the pack and give Dean a run for his money. He could really devastate Kerry, though. The Dean support seems much more solid--verging on evangelical--while Kerry has a lot of people thinking he's the guy who could win. Biden could split that support right in half, and I venture to say, might grab the bigger half. Hmmmmm, come to think of it, he might actually be good for Dean. But, he could be more formidible than Kerry, too. I predict he will be one of the top contenders for the nom if he runs. But I think he'll lose to Dean. Or . . .

Clark is the much bigger wildcard. I just don't know what to make of him. Will he be able to get a bone fide campaign off the ground this late? If he does, I think he is the one person with the potential to beat Howard.

If Clark can hurtle quickly out of the single digits, he could take off and win the whole thing. But that is going to be really hard to do. It's so late for such an unknown, outsider. Biden's got a long Senate career and many years raising millions. Does Clark have the money connections to launch this late? Dean did it the hard way, but he had an extra year.

It takes a lot to drag me to watch a dufus like Larry King, but I tivo'd it, watching now and pleasantly surprised. (And got a lot of chuckles from that King person. He opened up with the most insipid question about why people don't call Dean doctor--which they often do--and kept pressing it, as if it were something that mattered. And he had the oddest habit of continually referring to Dean appearing on "the front cover" of Time and Newsweek. Was there talk of featuring him on the back cover, in place of a Seagram's ad?)

Dean is extremely winning in person, but not always on TV, where it unfortunately counts. I braced myself for some awkwardness, but he really blew me away. He's really gotten better at this TV thing.

He's gotten a ton of exposure this week, which I thought was the important thing, but it strikes me now that the more Howard surges, the more chances he gets under the various microscopes, and the more experience he gets. The thing about pres candidates is they all tend to start out a little shaky, and get a lot better at it (the ones who are going to make it).

It's unrealistic to expect anyone to be a star day one--look at Shrub, he still makes an ass out of himself every time he faces a microphone--and the more situations like this he gets the sharper he'll be in January, and more importantly, the sharper he'll be next fall.

So far he's doing a masterful job. Loved the way he turned that liberal "charge" (charged with that dirty word liberal. Sad as it is, how a Dem handles that charge is the single most important hurdle they face in these conservative times):

KING: How do you react that so many conservative Republicans, some, many on the extreme right, want you to be the candidate? They think you would be the easiest one to beat.

DEAN: Well, I welcome that challenge. You know, they all say, Well, he's so liberal. Well, if liberal is balancing budgets, please do call me a liberal. No Republican president has balanced a budget in 34 years in this country. If you want jobs and investment in this country, you're going to have to have a Democrat because the Republicans simply can't handle money.

. And seemed positively Solomonic responding to the tape of Lieberman painting him as McGovern:

DEAN: Well, obviously I don't agree.

I think the four candidates from Washington that voted for the war, Senator Lieberman, Senator Kerry, Senator Edwards and Representative Gephardt basically gave the president carte blanche in October to launch a preemptive strike and the evidence wasn't there.

Let's look at what the president said. He told us that he was buying -- that Iraq was buying uranium from Africa. That wasn't true. He told us -- or the vice president that Iraq was on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons. That wasn't true. The president told us there was a clear link between al Qaeda and Iraq. That wasn't true. The secretary of defense told us he knew exactly where the weapons were, right around Tikrit and Baghdad. That wasn't true. So if I could figure that with my foreign policy team as a governor from Vermont, my question is why should we be led by people who couldn't figure that out and who voted to give the president unilateral authority to attack Iraq?

The beltway boys just cannot get it into their pretty little heads how a candidate can get elected after oposing that war. I think he makes a case that a whole lot of middle Americans will buy into. Ann Coulter will never swallow that explanation, but I think a great big chunk of the public will. Depending on the state of Iraq in a year, it could be way more or way less agreeing with him. But he doesn't need half the electorate on every issue. He needs to make a credible case, where the average person would respond, "Huh. That makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure I agree, but I kinda like this guy." If he can do that on his "weakest" issue and wow them on the others, he can win. But some simpletons inside the beltway will never understand that.

Full transcript of the show here.