55-year-old Canon Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop for the diocese of Los Angeles. She is the second openly gay bishop in the global Anglican fellowship.
A row over the appointment of a lesbian as a bishop has plunged the worldwide Anglican Church into a fresh crisis, amid fears that it could speed up the process of schism in the Communion.
55-year-old Canon Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop for the diocese of Los Angeles. She is the second openly gay bishop in the global Anglican fellowship, which is already deeply fractured over the issue.
Gay Bishop Gene Robinson from New Hampshire, who became the first gay Anglican bishop in 2003, sparked an uproar in the communion.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned that the election of a lesbian bishop in the United States raises "very serious questions" for the entire Anglican church. He said the choice of Glasspool to be a suffragan in Los Angeles had "important implications".
"The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole," Dr Williams said in a statement.
"I feel deeply ashamed that this is happening in the Anglican Church. I think a schism is absolutely inevitable," Rev Rod Thomas, the leader of the conservative evangelical group Reform and a member of the General Synod, was quoted as saying by The Times online. Glasspool has openly stated that she has lived with her partner, Becki Sander, since 1988.
"Any group of people who have been oppressed because of any one isolated aspect of their persons yearns for justice and equal rights," Glasspool was quoted as saying by the British daily.
The Anglican Communion has been on the brink of schism, with the foundation of several conservative groups and the departure of some parishes and even dioceses from their home provinces, since the consecration of Bishop Robinson. The fragile unity of the church will be further imperilled by Glasspool's election.
It confirmed fears among evangelicals in the 70-million strong Anglican Communion that crucial votes at last summer's General Convention of the Episcopal Church had in effect ended the moratorium on gay bishops.
Kendall Harmon, of the conservative diocese of South Carolina, said that the election of Canon Glasspool was damaging. "This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching," Harmon said.
However, campaigners for equality for lesbian and gay Christians supported the move and said a bishop's sexuality was a "secondary characteristic" in the qualities needed for proclaiming the Gospel.
"This is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia," said Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's and one of the founders of the liberal Inclusive Church network.
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