20 years ago this might have been "shocking" at least for bien pensants. But now to be "shocked" at it is merely to show oneself childish and backward.

I do have some misgivings about the children of lesbian couples -- who are their fathers?

God Bless the lutheran church in Sweden. May the conversations with the American Episcopal church be Blessed, and together lead the Christian church along the path to the future where all God's children are Blessed, whatever their sex or gender orientation.May the new Bishops, their partners, and the young son be richly Blessed by Our Lord

Fr John

SofVII, why not seek out a lesbian couple, get acquainted, and then ask who the father of their children is? I'll bet they've found the same solutions that infertile heterosexual couples use. More importantly, by becoming acquainted with the couple and family, you'll discover that (like the Saints of God in the old children's hymn) they're "just folk like me." You'll relax then. God bless.

Spirit

"I do have some misgivings about the children of lesbian couples -- who are their fathers?"

The same kind of people who father all the other children that are being fostered or adopted by straight couples.

Or they may be one of the partners' own children from a previous marriage.

I think it was more a question of ignorance. Not an inquiry regarding the paternal biological donor, but who was serving as "the father" in the lives of the children of lesbians. Because we all know that children who do not have fathers are some how deficient when compared to those who do!

Sheesh!!

"I do have some misgivings about the children of lesbian couples -- who are their fathers?" Spirit of Vatican II

Is that important?

In some cases the child was adopted; in other cases, such as with infertile heterosexual couples, there was a sperm donor. There are probably other options I am not thinking of right now.

More importantly, is the child being well cared for by his/her heterosexual parents, or homosexual parents, regardless of whether the child is born to one/both of the parents, or adopted?

I was a single father of a seven year old daughter, after my first wife died, and was a single parent for the next four years until I married again. My oldest child is now the married mother of my one and only grandchild, and had a loving upbringing, good education, and -- ignoring my cooking -- was well cared for.

There are countless single parent mothers, and a number of single parent fathers, and the critical issue is not "who is his/her father/mother?", but is the child loved, and is the child well cared for, protected, educated, and so forth.

Brant-in-LA

That is the most perfect answer that I can imagine.

Carl

'or they maybe one of the partner's children from a previous marriage'

My what wonderful standards to expect from those claiming to be Bishops! It really is incredible...

But what are biblical standards of living for Christians and especially Christian leaders as compared to just blessing all and any lifestyle choice?!

TBTG! :-D

Deo Gratias and Mazel Tov! God bless the Swedish Lutheran Church indeed! May it grow and prosper.
To the alleged Spirit of Vatican II,
I think the first answer to your question is "none of your business". Further, as Erika and Brant point out, there are numerous paths open to lesbian couples who want to have children.
Hmmm, how many microseconds will it take for ACNA and ++Akinola to request alternative oversight for offended Swedes?

I suppose one could mention that we are all blessed with the very same 'Heavenly Father'.

These days blessings pop up all round us, right in the midst of the dissers and the antigay campaigners - thank goodness I've lived long enough to see Bishop Eva and Bishop Gene, at least, open, honest, giving, right out in public. One could hardly imagine such conscientious believer freedoms, responsibilities, witnessing; growing up in the USA Bible Belt states.

Bravo, Brava.

"'or they maybe one of the partner's children from a previous marriage'

My what wonderful standards to expect from those claiming to be Bishops! It really is incredible..."

Hear, hear! How dare a Bishop be divorced and remarried...or marry a divorcee...or have a marriage annulled...or marry someone who had a marriage annulled...or be a widow...or marry a widow...

Really, Father, you seem a little quick to assume the worst in your eagerness to chide.

Well let us see what the bible says (apologies for those of you who hold this work in contempt and see no reason to do anything with it other than interpret it according to a 'feeling' based on modern culture) 1 TImothy:

If a man desires the position of a bishop he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;

So BillyD- sorry but your scenarios covering divorce are not really on according to the bible. It does not say the husband of one wife in serial monogamy. The widow situation would be fine....except you then seem to overlook the strange notion that somebody once married and able to have children -chooses (despite evidence that they can be in a heterosexual relationship) to enter a homosexual union which is also contrary to God's word.

Whilst I would always want to be gracious, loving and accepting of everyone. Where office of Bishop is concenred I think we need fine exemplars of biblical living...do you not?

'But what are biblical standards of living for Christians and especially Christian leaders as compared to just blessing all and any lifestyle choice?!'
In my experience, both from my own life and talking to others, not many of us make 'lifestyle choices'. This is especially true of people who have been involved in divorce, remarriage, bringing up their own and other people's children. Most of the time, we don't choose our lives, but we respond to what life throws at us and we do the best we can, with the help of God and those who care for us.
I thought that the Christian Gospel proclaimed the love of God for us in dealing with these events, the power of God to help to us find truth and goodness in and through messy circumstances, and the redemptive power of God to help us to use them creatively to the glory of God.
However, in Mr Tomlinson's Church you seem to get one shot at life and you'd better not screw up, or you're not fit to walk through the doors.

Ed
Before you start to foam at the mouth - I did not say that Eva Brunne's child is the biological child from a prior marriage of either Bishop Brunne or her partner (which, as Billy points out, might mean widowhood, not divorce).

I have absolutely no idea how this couple came to be parents.

I have answered Spirit's question about how lesbian couples in general can end up rearing children. So please, accusations about the moral standards of bishops are completely irrelevant here.

Ed
"except you then seem to overlook the strange notion that somebody once married and able to have children -chooses (despite evidence that they can be in a heterosexual relationship) to enter a homosexual union which is also contrary to God's word"

This is a bit off topic, but there is nothing strange about gay people having married before they realised they were gay, or because the succumbed to the pressure of society, or because they simply could not accept even for themselves who they are.
They could then end up divorced or widowed like any other heterosexual couple.

The other obvious answer is that someone is bisexual and has a valid first heterosexual marriage followed by a same sex relationship.

That you consider this to be unbiblical whereas we know it to be a gift from a loving God is so boringly old that we don't need to go into it again here.

"Whilst I would always want to be gracious, loving and accepting of everyone" - Ed Tomlinson -

You could have fooled me, Ed!

'everyone' I expect, except women and gays!

"But what are biblical standards of living for Christians and especially Christian leaders as compared to just blessing all and any lifestyle choice?! " - Ed Tomlinson -

Ed, for your info; These Biblical standards:

'(Jesus) replied: Who are my mother and my brothers? ...Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother, sister and mother" ' The word father simply is not mentioned here, perhaps because Jesus was more conscious of the primary paternal importance of the Fatherhood of God.

"The widow situation would be fine....except you then seem to overlook the strange notion that somebody once married and able to have children -chooses (despite evidence that they can be in a heterosexual relationship) to enter a homosexual union..."

That's not strange at all. Among other scenarios, lots of gay people do not "own" their identity until later in life, and may enter heterosexual marriages as a way of "curing" themselves, or because of family pressure.

Why o why cannot Christian folk stop wanting to investigate the detailed living arrangements of other people. Please respect that other folk may live differently to you, because that is how life worked out for them. God walks with us, and so often opens up for us new living which fulfills our wholeness in Him. It may not be your choice, those who investigate others lives. But it is the choice of a loving God, working through those peoples lives. Enabling them to become whole in His sight, and used in His service. So hands off this couple. I too was Blessed by being adopted by a very generous loving couple. God be Praised

Quoting particular Bible verses in translation is dodgy at best. We clearly know from available scholarship that none of the ancient near eastern cultures had a neatly equivalent word for today's vocabulary, not to mention the biological and social science which stands behind the words. Yes, ancient near eastern cultures were variously familiar with many different sorts of same sex behavior and life.

Three horrific forms were especially well known: (1) warriors raping conquered men and youth, (2) sex exploitations of male slaves by owners and friends, (3) temple/grove "sacred" prostitutes. Conflating any of these three with modern queer folks is misleading at best; and intentionally false at worst. (Urgent: ET phone home to study the commandment against bearing false witness about neighbors, please.)

Ancient cultures also give us Mythically Outsized same sex couples, valorized and lauded in legend, myth, story; making it all that more remarkable that no single, simple ancient word existed for "homosexual" or "lesbian".

Even the famed poetry writer of Lesbos who helped give us the name, "lesbian", did not call herself, "lesbian". Indeed, nobody in the west did either; until the later nineteenth century when a cultural-historical notion of gender variance and sexual orientation variance slowly began to dawn - mostly derived from close observation of real people who loosely taken together seemed something like a 'third sex' to the conscientious eyes of the era.

Quoting Bible verses to enforce traditional fears and ignorances about queer folks is just like quoting verses to prove a flat earth Ptolematic Cosmology. It may elevate those verses to high religious authority; but in the end it diminishes deity and gospel by flying stubbornly in the face of the real cosmos, the real creation (which all Anglican theologians agree, points back to the Creator).

"... but in the end it diminishes deity and gospel..."

So it does!

The tragedy is, DrDanF, that since Augustine anyway, the west has been plagued with the notion that the "universe at hand" is simply not as it ought to be, which offers a neat way to avoid any data that might actually be at our disposal in favor of unrealised (and unrealisable) idealistic hopes and dreams. That this worldview is not one Jesus would have comprehended ('the kingdom is among you') is bypassed in the interests of exalting some of what is "natural" over and against other things equally "natural."

"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife" - Biblical quote by Ed. tomlinson -

Presumably Ed, if the Bible is to be taken as literally as you suggest, I think you would agree that the words "must be" apply equally to the clause "the husband of one wife". In this case, the Bishops of the Church of Rome, which you seem to idealise, are not being biblical - and are therefore not being as Christian as you, yourself.

As Doctor Dan has already suggested - biblical literalism gets us all nowhere, and cannot be used to press one argument against another in the way you want to use it. Hermeneutics is a rather more subtle discipline than most conservatives are wont to accept.

People like Tomlinson simply need to be told that the problem is their approach to the bible. There is simply no need for any more argument. Accept that the Bible is nothing more than a document of its time, written by humans, and reflective of the mores and values of the time and culture in which it was written, all of which are undoubtedly so unless one holds a belief position seeing the words on paper as something more than they actually are.

This, though, is the problem some liberal Christians have. They try and hold on to the bible as something more than just a historical man-made book, even though the logic of their position is that it is in fact, nothing more.

I asked a question about the children of lesbian couples and got nothing but emotive responses such as: "I think the first answer to your question is "none of your business".

I don't like the idea of anonymous sperm donors (or the idea of surrogate mothers who hire out their wombs for pay and then hand the baby over, perhaps to a male gay couple), and I am surprised that everyone here seems so much at home with that idea. Lesbian adoption, on the other hand, seems to me a worthy and Christian commitment.

Spirit
"I asked a question about the children of lesbian couples and got nothing but emotive responses such as...."

I resent that. I gave you a perfectly polite and factual response.

I hadn't mentioned sperm donors or surrogate mothers. It is possible to object to those, but you then also have to object to them for heterosexual couples. This is a worthy but different debate and not part of this thread.

Aside: Yesterday's Sunday Times carried an article about research according to which children of lesbian couples tend to do better than children of conventional parents.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6917212.ece

Let's not forget that lesbians are perfectly normal people who have fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews and male friends, and that their children do not grow up in a female vacuum without any loving male influence.

"I asked a question about the children of lesbian couples and got nothing but emotive responses such as: "I think the first answer to your question is "none of your business"."

That's not so much an emotive response as it is a statement of fact. Open, uninvited speculation about other people's private lives - how and under what conditions they conceived their children - just doesn't seem to fall within your job description. Or anybody else's.