AN ORDINATION ANNIVERSARY: 4/29/77

This is the 2,000th post for Blazing Indiscretions! And what a better way than to celebrate this anniversary:

On April 29, 1977, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas ordained its first woman priest, Helen Havens. In 1981 St Stephens parish at Woodhead and W. Alabama, Houston - where I was a member - was the first church in the Diocese of Texas with the vision to call a woman rector. Guess who? From the parish history pages:

Clax [Monro, the rector at the time] appointed Bob Evans to chair a search committee and the work began. Members visited other churches to hear their candidates, and received recommendations from parishioners. Helen Havens, an assistant at St. Francis, was recommended and some members of the committee were alarmed. The idea of a woman rector was very new. In fact, there were not women rectors in the Diocese of Texas and very few in the United States. Three members of the committee agreed to meet the prospect and were quickly convinced that she was the best choice. After numerous meetings, debates, and prayers, the vestry finally and miraculously recommended that the church call Helen Havens. The Vestry vote was close, but favorable, and Bob Evans and Sidney Mitchell called on Bishop Benitez to request the call.

The Bishop was concerned about St. Stephen's choice and took the unusual step of requiring the Vestry to reconsider its vote. The Vestry met again and voted with a greater majority to sustain its original vote. Messrs. Evans and Mitchell met again with the Bishop who was still concerned and again asked the Vestry to reconsider its action. At this, Bob Evans said that he would comply, but that he wanted the Bishop to explain to the Vestry why he wanted another vote. This ended the matter, and Helen Havens was called to St. Stephen's. The first woman to be called as rector to a parish in the Diocese of Texas, Helen began her ministry with us on Thanksgiving Day, 1981.

A Gentle Witness

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates one of my heros - Florence Li Tim-Oi, who on this day in 1944 was ordained as the first woman priest in the Anglican Communion.

Collect of the Day:

Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much-beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion: By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Icon of Florence Li Tim-Oi in the General Theological Seminary, New York City, 2005; painted by Sr. Ellen Francis, OSH.

Get with the Program, CofE! A Woman's Place is in the House of Bishops!

I have never understood the idea of alternative oversight bishops in the TEC and CofE. Especially when both Churches opened up the three orders of ordained ministry to women waaay back in 1976 and 1992, respectively. Even back in 1976 I thought these compromises were ridiculous... - a comment I posted on Thinking Anglicans, May 25, 2008

A church that acknowledges that women should be allowed to be bishops cannot also say that it has doubts about it.- Christina Rees in the Guardian Comment is Free, February 9, 2010.

The General Synod of the Church of England has just completed. After 35 years debating this issue in the Anglican Communion, enough, already!

Christina Rees writes further,

The observation is made repeatedly that if one were to replace the word "women" in these discussions with "black" or even "French", the breathtaking offence of these views would become obvious. This verbal offence indicates a much deeper issue: females are still considered by some to be unable to represent Christ at the altar and as not being made fully in the image of God.

Of course, this is denied by the men and women who oppose women's ordination. They cite tradition, as if that has remained static over the past 2,000 years, and ecclesiology, as if the Church of England's relationship with some other churches is more important than what it understands to be true. All this in spite of the fact that elsewhere in the Anglican communion women have been ministering as bishops for over 20 years.

It will come. Within a few years there will be women taking their place among their brothers. As women have been integrated as priests over the last 15 years, now representing nearly 40% of all Church of England clergy, so too will women be appointed as bishops. When that happens, there will at last be parity for women, but what will remain is the more important work of transforming people's understanding of what it means to be human in the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Today Thinking Anglicans lists several General Synod related articles in Comment is Free section of The Guardian.

Local Vermont:"Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States" at UVM

The national art exhibit "Interrupted Life: Incarcerated Mothers in the United States" will open at UVM’s Davis Center’s Fireside Lounge on November 9th and run through the 20th.

The exhibit, designed to offer insight into the lives of women who are incarcerated, raises questions about the equality and equity of the American justice system through race, class, gender and sexuality. The effects of incarceration on Vermont children and their families will be on display in the form of artwork, writings and photography produced by women incarcerated at the Northwest State Correctional facility in Swanton, Vt. A video created by teenagers telling the story of what it is like to have a parent in prison will also be shown.

YEE HAW

The Vancouver Sun

Texas hospitals charging sexual assault victims for rape detection kits

As if coming forth with an allegation of sexual assault wasn't demeaning enough in many parts of North America, Texas has quietly decided to allow hospitals to charge a fee as high as $1800 to victims for the rape kits used to prove an attack.

Despite Texas' crime victim compensation fund being flush with cash, and most parts of the United States seeking to lessen the stress involved in a sexual assault investigation rather than increase it, Texan women have to hand over a credit card before their investigation can commence - or face debt collectors afterwards.

The office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says the standard practice is for the state to cover the costs of the kit automatically, but "many follow-up or added costs are not covered." Staff added that the victims compensation fund only pays as a last resort, when police and the victim's health insurance company refuse to do so.

Texas isn't the first place where this rule is in place - the town of Wasilla, Alaska, home to former mayor and current state Governor Sarah Palin, also charged assault victims for their rape kits until the state government outlawed the practice.

During her campaign for the vice presidency, Palin told a reporter at the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper that such a rule was ridiculous, stating, "The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

And yet, when she was Mayor, Wasilla did just that, billing rape victims between $300 and $1200 after the fact for their test.

Wasilla is not alone. In North Carolina, the vast majority of rape victims were being asked to cover some or all of the cost of their rape kits, until the local Raleigh News & Observer newspaper brought the practice to light. A state victims compensation fund had reportedly run low on cash, meaning it could only cover around $1000 of the $1600 hospitals now charge in that state for the kit. Similar situations have been reported in Arkansas, Illinois, and Georgia.

Rape kits generally include bags for clothing, a comb to collect pubic hair, test tubes for blood collection, swabs for DNA checks and fluid, and a series of tests for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and DNA collection.

A TOUCH OF TEXAS CLASS

An Appreciation by Robert Leleux in The Texas Observer:--Eleanor Tinsley—the only person I’ve ever met who was also a park and an elementary school—died Feb. 10. For anybody who doesn’t already know, much of what’s best and most beautiful about the city of Houston was a gift of Tinsley’s imagination. As a public servant and civic leader, she was a figure of great guts and dignity. She was also a very nice lady.

Houston, my hometown, is that strange place on the map where New Orleans manners meet western wildness, and where white-gloved refinement so often collides with cowboy coarseness and bigotry. White gloves never graced finer hands than Tinsley’s. A soothing presence in cupcake colors, she gave every impression of being the well-born Baptist matron she was (her great-grandfather, Dr. Rufus Burleson, was a president of Baylor University). But she was also one of those trailblazing women of the ’60s and ’70s who helped define our state as surely as any man at the Battle of San Jacinto.

When Tinsley was elected to the Houston School Board in 1969, the city was charged with the daunting task of racial integration—a cause to which she was unwavering. The Houston Chronicle reports that, during this tumultuous process, Tinsley was approached by a man made furious by the idea that his daughter might “catch something” from a black student.

“Perhaps, sir,” she replied, “she might catch tolerance.”
...
In 1979 Tinsley joined forces with Houston’s gay community to oust an outspoken homophobe from the City Council. That year, she became one of the first two women elected to the council, not to mention a champion of women’s and gay rights causes. By the time she retired in 1995, after 20 years in office, she’d played a major role in the creation of Houston Community College, Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston’s 911 emergency service, and literally hundreds of public parks. Former Councilman Jim Greenwood, quoted in the Chronicle, considers her “the most effective member of the City Council that Houston has ever seen.”

Oh, man, when I read this today, I realised that I really miss Houston. Eleanor Tinsley was truly one of the beacons of light during my 20-odd years in the Bayou City. I remember that incident with the homophobe on city council; I'd only been in Houston for three years. Tinsley cared about "quality of life" issues before doing so was popular. These were the years of Houston's unfettered growth, yet she worked on getting a 1980 sign ordinance to regulate billboards and championed green spaces and parks. R.I.P. Mrs Eleanor Tinsley.

Photo: Sharon Steinmann / Chronicle

HUMAN ECOLOGY

From THINKING ANGLICANS

human ecology

The Pope, speaking on issues of sexuality, argues from the position of an organisation which has a vested interested in preserving a traditional totally male hierarchy. It reflects a view, now not universally accepted, that women have no voice and no vote, where husbands take over the property and the rights of wives, and in which the woman is ceremonially handed over from her father to her husband at her wedding.

Women’s emancipation in society has been one of the chief causes of a serious rift between Church and State in many countries where the ministry of Churches has remained restricted to men. Even formerly Catholic countries now describe themselves as having a secular constitution, and signs or the rift are most noticeable in areas relating to human sexuality:

* Female emancipation
* Legalisation of contraception
* Legalisation of abortion
* Liberalisation of divorce laws
* Decriminalisation of homosexual acts
* Equal rights for women
* An end to oppression of gay and lesbian people
* Legal frameworks for gay partnerships

It would be difficult to cite any other area in which Church and State have been more out of step with each other.

This unfortunately gives the impression that the only morality of interest to the Church is sexual morality. Indeed, it would now appear that the last time the Church could ever claim to lead a moral crusade to promote human equality it was over the ending of slavery, some two centuries ago. Since then it has been the State which has been in the forefront of promoting the dignity and equality of all people, whilst the Church has maintained its traditional inequalities by arguing for an opt out from national legislation.

Clearly Church and State perceive society very differently. The State sees all people as having an equal and valid contribution to make, whereas the Church, in preserving a traditional male hierarchy, has a structure which appears more primitive and tribal.

Homo sapiens evolved the capability of operating in larger units than any other large mammal. As this happened the pattern of a clan under the headship of a dominant male required some adjustment.

With children taking many years to come to maturity, grandparents became important in helping them acquire the skills they would need for survival. And it was no longer only the breeding couples of this largely monogamous species which held the fabric of society together. A significant contribution has always been made by those who did not marry. Those who did not have the constant responsibility of feeding and rearing their own children had time to develop skills and enrich the community in other ways which would make them valuable to the whole group.

Such people were not perceived as a threat to married couples. The man who did not covet his neighbour’s wife has always been less of a danger to society than the heterosexual man who might want to tempt her away. The reason for having strict marriage laws is not because of what gay people might do, but in order to protect couples from heterosexual predators. It would therefore appear that once again the Pope has shown that the Church is out of step with society in its understanding of human sexuality. There is no danger to the species from gay people whilst 90% of people are attracted to the opposite sex. Gay people have never posed any threat to those who wish to live as heterosexual couples. They simply accept this as a valid lifestyle for those who wish to enjoy it.

Society in Britain, North America, and much of Europe is happy with this situation and has framed legislation to protect the rights of all people. By contrast the Pope is the personification of a wrong human ecology; one which fails to give rights to all people. And people wonder, seeing the Church of England’s hesitation over the ordination of women to the episcopate, whether having an Established Church which retains such an outmoded view of women has anything to commend it.

THE VICAR OF DIBLEY WOULD BE PROUD

About time more mitres... erm, I mean feathers were ruffled!

Via Thinking Anglicans, is a report by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in the Sunday Telegraph that Church of England bishops have met recently and narrowly voted to proceed with the historic reforms and to resist pressure to create separate dioceses free of women clergy.

In 1944, Li Tim-Oi was the first woman ordained priest in the Anglican Communion. In 1974, came the Philadelphia Eleven in the Episcopal Church. Two years later, at the 65th General Convention, TEC voted to open all three orders of ordained ministry to women. And still, there are so-called "traditionalist" dioceses in our Church which receive "alternative oversight" by a male bishop; one diocese refuses to welcome a visit from our current presiding bishop. Even after the 1976 ordinations, I thought these kinds of compromises were hypocritical. Either you ordain women, or you don't. Don't do it half-assed! The CoE bishops' decision to do away with separate dioceses for males will be voted on by its General Synod in July. I wish only that the Episcopal Church would have the balls to do the same!

World Wrestling Entertainment Protest in Burlington, Sunday Aug 5

Update and Bumped up: I was at the protest today. About 18 protesters - all genders and ages with two members of the Green Party of Burlington joining. We gathered in a line on Main Street, across from Burlington's Memorial Auditorium, just before the event started. We got some appreciative thumbs up honks from passing motorists, but also some nasty stares and a few jeers from the waiting audience. What amazed me were the number of family groups waiting to enter the building. I mean prepubescent children with their mothers and fathers; sometimes I spotted generations of the same family. My hope is that some people just started to think about the effects of violence in their homes. There was a good op-ed in yesterday's Free Press, which reads, in part:

If you are still not convinced, then take the word of the medical journal Pediatrics, which published last August the finding of Wake Forest University researchers: "Both among male and female students, the frequency with which they watched wrestling was associated with a number of indicators of violence and weapon-carrying." Lead researcher Robert DuRant stated, "The more children and adolescents are exposed to violence, the more likely they are to engage in violence -- and media plays a part."

In my opinion the evidence is overwhelming that there is no place for the WWE in Burlington, and in particular in a facility such as Memorial Auditorium which is owned by the public. After the tragic murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn last year, which of course followed the tragic murder of Laura Winterbottom and the double-slaying of two women in Essex, the Burlington City Council issued a resolution stating "that violent behavior perpetrated against women by men is inexcusable and will not be tolerated in our community," and "that we commit to working with our schools and neighborhoods to educate ourselves, especially boys and men, on prevention of violence against women."

A commendable gesture. Very nice words. But wouldn't action be better? How about an ordinance prohibiting a WWE performance within our city, or at least prohibiting the rental of city-owned property to the WWE in light of its dismal record on domestic violence? Now, that would actually be doing something, something in honor of Gardner-Quinn, Winterbottom and the two Essex women. Something that actually might make a difference.



World Wrestling Entertainment SILENT PROTEST, 5:30 PM, Sunday, August 5 - gathering at the parking lot of College Street Congregational Church, 265 College Street at South Union Ave - across from YMCA (map).

Join SafeSpace and the Burlington Business & Professional Women for a protest against the WWE show in Burlington. To learn more about the WWE as a violence issue, follow this link.

My BPW contact tells me that "this is a SILENT PROTEST and we do not interact with the WWE crowd, although they do taunt us and some people could feel threatened."

Note to Greens in Burlington: this needs our presence and endorsement.

Much Beloved Daughter

Educate a man and you educate an individual; educate a woman and you educate a community.

2007 marks the centenary of Li Tim-Oi, the first Anglican woman priest. I didn't know this: we share the same birthday.

She is one of my heroes; I had the good fortune to meet this gentle, humble soul when she came to Houston in the late 1980s.

Tim-Oi's birthday commemoration comes nearly 31 years after the Episcopal Church voted at its 65th General Convention to open all three orders of ordained ministry to women.

Today, the ordination of women is widely -- but not universally -- accepted in the Episcopal Church. An entire generation, both in chronological age and in terms of their membership in the Episcopal Church, has known nothing but a church in which women serve as priests.

Christina Rees writes today about her in the Guardian.

After Li Tim-Oi died in 1992, her sister established a foundation in her honour that gives grants for training Anglican women in the developing world. Over 200 have been trained so far.

The Li Tim-Oi Foundation has been relaunched as It Takes One Woman.

Here's Rees writing about her visit to east Africa, where some of the woman ITOW has helped -

Every woman I met was challenging her own culture about practices that they believed clashed with the Christian gospel. They were also bravely challenging their own churches where they met collusion with harmful practices and colleagues turning a blind eye to behaviour contributing to the spread of HIV/Aids. In addition to their Christian work, many of them were teaching people in their communities ways of becoming economically self-sufficient. I came away convinced that these women hold the key to ending traditions and practices which are damaging to women and that they are uniquely placed to help end the spread of HIV/Aids.