The Hinterland Rants from the hinterland. A Denver writer and pretend anthropologist rips into artistic treason and random acts of ethical violence.
May also contain gushes of enthusiasm.

Thursday, October 16, 2003


Confusing edict on the gay bishop

The AP headline looks ominous:

Anglican leaders warn against gay bishop

But headline writers notoriously screw up heads to complex stories, and that may well be the case here.

The lead reads just as bad, but the following paragraph seems to soften it:

Oct. 16, 2003  |  LONDON (AP) -- Anglican leaders said Thursday their global communion will be "put in jeopardy" if U.S. Episcopalians proceed with the consecration of their first openly gay bishop.

In a unanimous statement at the end of a two-day crisis meeting on their deep divisions over homosexuality, leaders of 37 national churches called on members not to react precipitously. But they appeared to concede that some parts of the church would cut off communion with the New Hampshire diocese or the whole Episcopal church.

They also called on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to establish a commission to study the divisions and report within a year.

And this later sentence makes it seem this might have been a good result--at the very least, it was better than the anti-gays had hoped:

American conservatives, organized under the banner of the American Anglican Council, had hoped that the primates would expel the Episcopal Church and recognize them as the true Anglican body in the United States.

I'm just not sure what to make of all this. Which is a freaking sad commentary on AP writer RACHEL ZOLL. You'd think the least should could do was allow us to understand what the hell just happened--how to interpret coded diplomat phrases--instead of just parroting them.

Interpretting this diplomatic stuff is like reading a foreign language. It doesnt' mean anything unless you know how to interpret it. If they had released the statement in Latin, would she have just transcribed that?

AP sucks.

(They have sucked a long time. Can't anything be done about them?)
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Rants from the hinterland. A Denver writer and pretend anthropologist rips into artistic treason and random acts of ethical violence. May also contain gushes of enthusiasm.

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