c. 2008 Religion News Service
Gay Episcopal bishop enters into N.H. civil union
(RNS) Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson and his longtime male partner have joined themselves in a civil union in New Hampshire.
Robinson and Mark Andrew, who have been partners for 20 years, were united in a civil ceremony Saturday (June 7) in the narthex of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Concord, said Mike Barwell, a spokesman for Robinson.
A religious “thanksgiving” service at the church followed five years to the day after Robinon was elected inside St. Paul’s as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church or the wider Anglican Communion.
Civil unions have been legal in New Hampshire since Jan. 1.
Robinson was not invited to the Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world in Kent, England, but will attend anyway to advocate for the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church.
The bishop said he wanted to have the wedding before Lambeth because he has received death threats.
“I am simply not willing to travel to the Lambeth Conference this summer and put my life in danger without putting into place protections for my beloved partner and my daughters and granddaughters that a civil union affords us,” he said in an interview May 21.
Robinson has two daughters by a previous marriage that ended in divorce.
Barwell said two off-duty police officers provided security for the ceremony, and no incidents occurred. About 120 friends and family attended the service, he said, which was followed by a reception in nearby Canterbury Shaker Village.
The Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity USA, a Episcopal gay rights group, delivered the sermon at the thanksgiving ceremony.
“Let us take heart that while the church and culture and the (Anglican) Communion continue to wrestle through questions about marriage and unions and sacraments and sanctity, the blessing Gene and Mark are claiming here today enriches not just their lives but all of ours,” Russell said, according to the sermon text posted on her blog.
_ Daniel Burke
Survey finds evangelicals, `unaffiliated’ at play in fall elections
WASHINGTON (RNS) Nearly one in five evangelicals and Catholics are undecided about which presidential candidate to support, according to a survey released Monday (June 9).
In addition, fewer Protestants and Catholics identify themselves as Republicans than did four years ago, according to Calvin College’s Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics in Grand Rapids, Mich., which commissioned the survey.
Protestants, as well as Latino Catholics and religiously unaffiliated Americans, could be the crucial “swing vote in the electorate,” said Kevin den Dulk, a political scientist at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich.
One of the new influential groups are voters who classify themselves as “unaffiliated” _ those who identify as secular, agnostic or do not assign themselves to any religious category. They comprise more than 16 percent of all Americans, and are traditionally young and male.
“This group is large and growing” and “much less likely to be Republican,” said Douglas Koopman, political scientist at Calvin College.
Evangelical Protestants make up more than one-quarter of all Americans and still remain overwhelming Republican. The report also showed a fragmentation among U.S. evangelicals, with younger members possibly peeling away from traditional Republican values in favor of other issues, including environmental protection.
With the unstable economy and ever-rising gas prices, the economy and the war in Iraq will trump social causes as major campaign issues for 2008, the survey found. At the same time, increasing immigration continues to contribute to “a growing religious pluralism,” especially among Latinos, according to the survey.
The survey of more than 3,000 Americans was conducted in April and May and asked respondents about their religious and political attitudes. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
_ Jonathan D. Rubin
Nepal’s `living goddess’ tradition in limbo
CHENNAI, India (RNS) The appointment of a new “living goddess” in Nepal has been held up by the recent abolition of the Hindu monarchy in the Himalayan nation, according to Nepalese officials.
Traditionally, the palace priest appoints the girl, who is chosen in her infancy and is treated as a Kumari, or goddess, until puberty. But the priest no longer has any authority in the newly proclaimed secular republic, the head of the trust overseeing the tradition says.
A six-year-old girl was recently selected by a religious panel as the “living goddess” in the temple town of Bhaktapur, near the capital of Kathmandu.
The head of the trust overseeing the Kumari tradition told the BBC that because the royal priest no longer has any role in the matter, the chairman of the trust’s board will have to decide who would approve the new living goddess.
The previous Kumari, 11-year-old Sajani Shakya, was one of the three most revered Kumaris in Nepal until she was abruptly retired in March. Last summer she was nearly sacked from her position after traveling to the United States to promote a new documentary about the Kumaris of Nepal. After threatening to strip the girl of her title, Nepalese authorities later later agreed to a “cleansing” ceremony.
_ Achal Narayanan
Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop M. Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts
(RNS) “I preached …that they were a real model for the rest of us around the world, in the way that they are standing up against oppression, and not letting it get in the way of their worship for God.”
_ Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts M. Thomas Shaw, who recently traveled to Zimbabwe at the request of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Shaw said Zimbabwean Anglicans are attacked, jailed and intimidated by the government of dictator Robert Mugabe. He was quoted by the Boston Globe.
KRE/CM END RNS