Bishop Attacks Queen

According to the legend, St. Valentine was a bishop in what is now Italy back in the days when the Romans were killing Christians. He was beheaded on February 14th, which became his feast day. In the middle ages, people began sending love letters – or Valentines – on this day because folk wisdom held that February 14th is the day when birds – lovebirds, I suppose – choose their mates.

Recent history tells us Kenneth Angell is bishop of Burlington, in what is now Vermont. Late last year, the Vermont Supreme Court decreed same-sex unions must be legally recognized and left it to the state legislature to determine whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry or if the state should establish a domestic partnership law, bestowing the legal equivalent of marriage. As you might imagine, gay marriage is the big issue of the 2000 legislative session. Vermonters have been turning out by the thousand to attend public hearings. The “God hates fags” people from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas put in an appearance a few months ago, then quickly ran away.

Bishop Angell, our own anti-Valentine, stormed to his bully pulpit to denounce same-sex marriage and ordered Vermont Catholics to join him in a holy war against civil rights for gays and lesbians. The bishop not only opposes gay marriage, but even the civil equivalent. “God’s plan – one man and one woman,” say the buttons of the bishop’s supporters. Bishop Angell says he is not anti-gay, but feels he has to defend marriage.

Well, if it’s defending marriage the bishop proposes, I’m afraid he’s got quite a stack in his “in” box. Although the bishop is in the paper every other day “defending marriage,” none of his statements condemn spousal abuse, better known as wife beating. I haven’t heard Bishop Angell speak out against mail order brides – “Lovely Asian ladies long to do your bidding” – or the all-night, drive through, Elvis impersonator wedding chapels in Las Vegas and Reno. Or when one of those miscreant Kennedys plunks down a couple grand to buy quickie annulment. Not a peep about any of that. But when a man and a man or a woman and a woman want to stand up in public and promise to “love, honor and cherish, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live” – only then does Bishop Angell get aroused and come storming out of the cathedral.

Fortunately for Vermont, the Episcopal and United Methodist bishops and several rabbis disagree. They support and publicly call for gay marriage in Vermont. Bishop Angell has allies, too. The Mormons – who are out there defending marriage as one man and five women.

The students at St. Michael’s College, a Catholic institution of higher education, showed up to demonstrate at the statehouse in support of gay marriage. Their placards carried messages of love, tolerance and inclusion – three things I always thought should be at the heart of the Catholic message in America today. A priest who was at the capitol with Bishop Angell shouted at the students, screaming that they should have the decency to stop chanting while he was trying to lead a prayer. The poor man didn’t have to wits to know he was the indecent one – a prayer for intolerance is no prayer at all.

February is also the month for Burlington’s “Winter is a Drag Ball.” Vermonters, gay and straight, dress in drag and party like queens through the long winter night. No one seems to mind this – Bishop Angell does not crash the gate, flinging holy water in every direction. For all I know, he may be there, decked out in pink chiffon.

That’s the strangest part of this marriage thing – when gays and lesbians act queer, which is to say different, no one seems to mind. They fit into the narrow slot society has assigned them. It’s only when lesbians and gays start yearning for mainstream – even conservative – lifestyles, wanting to join the military, wanting get married – that the feathers start to fly.

(C) Mark Floegel, 2000

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