c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C, an author and a former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com.)

UNDATED _ My first reaction after hearing of Penthouse magazine’s expose of sex at the altar was”Damn, here we go again.” First, we will demolish the alleged perpetrators.

Then we will demolish anyone like them.

The facts might come out later, but by then trial-by-headlines and selective guilt-by-association will have done their damage.

If the Rev. Lloyd Andries, rector of St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church did conduct homosexual orgies on the altar of his Brooklyn, N.Y, church, then he ought to be punished. No question about that.

If other persons participated, they ought to be punished, too _ including the young man whose only consequence thus far is being paid by Penthouse to tell all.

In a wiser world, we would hear outrage that anyone could do such things, but then we would also hear many questions: Did it really happen? How reliable a source is a pornographic magazine? We would seek the alleged perpetrator’s response (He denies nearly all details in the Penthouse article and says he plans to sue the magazine for libel.) We would do the gumshoe work that any citizen has a right to expect.

And we would treat this as an instance of human failure _ if indeed it happened _ and not as a condemning example of some general fault. People fail, sometimes horribly, but that doesn’t condemn all others.

The woman who has a traffic accident isn’t proof that all women are lousy drivers. The black man who robs a bank isn’t proof that all blacks are criminals. The white husband who beats his wife isn’t proof that all white men are jerks. The lesbian camp counselor who seduces a young girl isn’t proof that all lesbians are predators. The car that dies at 10,000 miles isn’t proof that all cars are junk.

And yet people could hardly wait to pounce on this story of alleged deviance, just as they pounce on so many other human failings. Those in the Episcopal Church who deplore any moves toward considering homosexuality as an acceptable alternative way of life could not contain their jubilation.

They came out swinging. Toleration of homosexual behavior, said one conservative leader,”has opened up a Pandora’s box that has made us open to scandal.”Thirty conservative bishops signed a statement saying the events are”sickening, but hardly surprising.” That is absurd. One man may have done something wrong. But his error didn’t grow out of incorrect political or moral decisions by church hierarchy. If he did it, he did it because he made lousy choices, and those lousy choices _ like all lousy choices _ come out of a disease in the heart and a breakdown of an individual’s moral compass.

When a husband beats his wife, do we condemn the institution of marriage? When a woman embezzles millions from the national Episcopal Church, as just happened, do we say all women should be banned from managing money? Is her crime some proof that women belong in the kitchen?

People do stupid things, horrible things. People are living proof that we live in fundamental chaos. There is no amount of administrative oversight, legal clarity, finely tuned policies and procedures that will prevent a single person from doing evil. Look at the bombing in Oklahoma City.

Finding someone to blame, and then extending that circle of blame, won’t bring order to the universe. We cannot resolve knotty issues like sexuality by pointing to one pervert. And if we could solve it that easily, why would we not point to the gay man who does honorable things and makes a positive contribution to society? Do we use the rapist as an argument against heterosexuality? Do we use the white men who apparently bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City as a sign of white-male depravity?

No, we pounce. We use human suffering as a weapon. To make some political point, to leap over someone, to get an edge, we wait for the other guy to fall, then ride his suffering to victory.

If Penthouse’s article is accurate, then some people behaved miserably. But I find myself even more disturbed by those who, hearing of horror, exploit human failing to score some gain for themselves. That willingness to use people, to treat people as objects, and to exploit their failures is frightening.

MJP END EHRICH