Just How Welcoming Is Vermont's Episcopal Church? By Les Kinsolving

June 22, 2004 © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Page A-3 of the June 19 Washington Post quotes Episcopal Bishop of Vermont Thomas Ely as announcing:

"While other dioceses have also developed new liturgical rites for same-sex couples, Vermont's are the only ones that carry legal weight because the state's civil-union law permits couples to be joined by clergy, said Vermont Bishop Thomas C. Ely, who last year commissioned a task force to develop the new ceremonies."

"This signals a valuing of the commitment and presence of gays and lesbians in our churches and an ongoing commitment to the fact that when we say the Episcopal Church welcomes you, we mean it."

Are there any polygamists in Vermont – as there are, by the hundreds, on both sides of the Utah-Arizona border?

If there are, they too are surely welcome in Vermont's Episcopal Churches. For Bishop Ely can hardly withhold welcome to them – who have no record of spreading AIDS – if he not only welcomes, but advocates the pseudo-marriage of sodomists.

And since congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, while in nearby New Hampshire, called for legal marriage for all sexual orientations, surely Bishop Ely's "Vermont churches welcome everybody – and we mean it!" – would not exclude a sadist who wants to be civilly united with a masochist – and have this undeniably compatible relationship blessed by Bishop Ely.

The Post reports this new Vermont Episcopal matrimony only "closely approximates a traditional marriage rite."

"Same-sex couples are permitted to exchange rings, and only minor word changes are made in the liturgy, such as couples vowing to take their spouses 'to be my partner in life,' rather than 'to be my husband/wife.'"

But what if one of these same-sex couples are so determined to see to it that they are really, genuinely and fully married that they either (1) designate one of their partners to be husband and the other to be the wife – or (2) both demand the right vow to "Take thee as my husband/wife"?

What if the Vermont-Episcopal-Churches-Welcome-Everybody announcement were to attract the attention of Boston's NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association)? And what if they applied to hold a national convention in the parish house of the Episcopal Church in Montpelier (where Gov. Howard Dean signed the civil-union law)?

Or, if the Missouri organization "Man's Beast Friend," for those who believe in interspecies marriage, or California's Rene Guyon Society which believes in "Sex-Before-Eight-or-Else-It's-Too-Late" – preferably sex with your parents? Would Bishop Ely welcome any or all of these organizations into any Vermont Episcopal Church – to show "We really mean it"?

Les Kinsolving hosts a daily talk show for WCBM in Baltimore. His radio commentaries are syndicated nationally. He is White House correspondent for Talk Radio Network and WorldNetDaily. His show can be heard on the Internet at www.wcbm.com 8-10 p.m. Eastern each weekday. Before going into broadcasting, Kinsolving was a newspaper reporter and columnist – twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary.