Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The road to GC2012 goes through New York

New York is the most populous state to legalize same sex marriage, and serves as a microcosm of the broader Episcopal Church. The Lead points us to this NY Times article on the different responses of the various New York Dioceses of TEC to the legalization of civil same sex marriage.
[G]ay and lesbian Episcopalians will be allowed on Sunday to get married by priests in Brooklyn and Queens, but not in the Bronx or Manhattan or on Staten Island; in Syracuse but not in Albany.

That is because the church has not taken a firm position nationally on same-sex marriage, leaving local bishops with wide latitude to decide what priests may do when the law takes effect in New York State. In the state, with six Episcopal dioceses, the bishops are split: two have given the green light for priests to officiate at same-sex marriages, one has said absolutely not, two are undecided and one has staked out a middle ground, allowing priests to bless, but not officiate at, weddings of gay men and lesbians.
Rather than re-hash what I've written before, I'm going to point you at a couple of previous posts. As always I have strong opinions on the subject.

A review of where TEC is and the concept of "wide pastoral latitude". In this, I agreed with those who are willing to let the process unfold--pushing it, of course, but letting the process happen.

The question of how do you bless a marriage that isn't, yet. In this post, I pointed out the problems caused by a patchwork of legal recognitions of LGBT couples, who may be married in one state, but not recognized in another; who may be recognized if they are civil unioned, but not if they are married; who may have no legal recognition whatsoever. It's why I think TEC should advocate for legal civil marriage in all states, and the overturn of DOMA, as a justice issue

In thinking about the SCLM consultation, I reflected on the argument about complementarity--and not for the first time, remarked on the REAL redefinition of marriage, which is that both partners are equal now.

I have argued quite a lot for the importance of recognizing same sex marriage as marriage, at least ecclesiastically.

A lot rides on GC2012. My continuing concern is that it will end up with what I call a "gay ghetto": a liturgy specifically for gay partnerships, regardless of whether they are marriages, or DPs, or … nothing legal. My reason for this concern is the comments to this SCLM blog, e.g.
will the same-sex blessings the SCLM are tasked with designing be added to the “list” of sacraments– becoming, as it were, the Eighth Sacrament– or will they merely exist on a lesser plane than marriage as currently understood in the Prayer Book?
Note the explicit assumption that Gay will be Different (and probably lesser).
I think it may be interesting for the task group to consider (1) whether the theology developed through this process could equally justify the creation of a liturgy for blessing non-marital life-long commitments by opposite-gender couples, and (2) whether there are life-long committed same-gender relationships for which the Commission’s to-be-completed liturgy might be inappropriate.
again, the idea of something different and lesser -- gays and not-so-committed straights can have something OTHER than marraige.  (Whether DPs should co-exist with marriage, and the idea of "marriage lite",  we discussed at length here).

Then there is this summary of table comments from the House of Bishops C056 consultation. While many comments were positive, some were negative about gay people generally. But of greater concern is this idea that marriage is something different if the partners are gay, e.g.,
  • Is this an additional sacrament?
  • Will straight couples be permitted to use the new rite?
  • Distinction between blessings and marriage (this comes up multiple times)
  • Is this the sacrament of marriage, or something else? It needs to be something else, clearly.
As the Times article says,
Some gay and lesbian Episcopalians said they were content to allow the church to proceed slowly because they believed it was moving in what they viewed as the right direction. The issue of same-sex marriage will most likely be raised again at the church’s next national conference, next summer.
Make or break? Not quite that dramatic. But expectations run high, and not just for the folks in New York.

52 comments:

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

All of these are important questions ... and they're all part of a blog-in-progress with the working title "Separate But Equally Important."

Ann said...

Seems like Integrity NY could hold the bishop's feet to the fire a bit more rather than being apologists for the bishops.

Mary O'Shaughnessy said...

LGBT Christians--especially Anglicans--have many real, and dangerous, enemies.

I would rather encourage and support friendly bishops who are essentially on our side, rather than beat them down with constant negative feedback.

Ann said...

Re-read Letter from the Birmingham jail.

IT said...

@Susan, with all due respect, if the outcome of the exercise is separate-but-equal, that is, a rite or rites that are gay-specific rather than gender-neutral, then it bears the same relationship to matrimony as Domestic Partnership relative to Marriage.

And marriage is not a civil union or a domestic partnership. Sorry, it's just NOT. Moreover I didn't get gay-married. I got married. Similarly, I wouldn't want to be gay-blessed. If I"m not good enough for the real thing, then the conclusion is that I'm not good enough. And then you're back where you started.

Right now, things are in flux, so I have argued for everyone cutting some slack-- feeling their way, so to speak. So right now, I'm okay with the differences. But once you codify it, you make a gay ghetto. And the weight will be ponderous to keep it ghettoized.

IT said...

@Mary, I'm not bashing any bishops here.

But I agree with Ann, one should re-read the Letter frequently.

Here's a link

Mary O'Shaughnessy said...

IT--

See this for our take on one standard:

http://integritynyc.blogspot.com/2011/07/integritynyc-metro-and-new-york-state.html

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

My separate but equally important piece is about the parallel fights for blessing equity in the church and marriage equality in the culture.

And I am NOT one to cut bishops more slack than they deserve (God knows) but I do believe the current canons are ambiguous enough that they can genuinely be read to come to different conclusions. And my solution to that it not to beat up the guy who comes to a different conclusion than I do. It's to get that guy to help me change the canon.

Finally, my understanding ... and I'm on the SCLM Blessings Task Force ... is that the liturgical resources under development will be equally offered to bless civil marriages, civil unions as well as relationships that have no legal standing.

Because we are doing the work GC2009 instructed us to do ... collect and develop resources for the church to use to bless these relationships ... in NO WAY precludes our also working to make them unnecessary by ending marriage discrminiation both in the church and in the culture.

IMHO

Ann said...

Looking at the sclm stuff looks like separate not equal because of the narrow focus of the resolution

IT said...

Thanks, Susan for the clarification. I completely agree (and have argued numerous times as cited here) that all this confusion leads to the conclusion that the church should advocate robustly for civil marriage equality and elimination of DOMA.

As you say
the liturgical resources under development will be equally offered to bless civil marriages, civil unions as well as relationships that have no legal standing.

To me the only issue is whether they will be gender (ie, LGBT-) specific. Sure hope not.

Because once you have a liturgy in place, I fear that the momentum to challenge the status quo in the church will be lost. And if that liturgy is gay specific, then voila: you have made a gay ghetto and it will be really hard to get out of it.

Separate. Not equal.

This is not to take away from the hard work you SCLM folks are doing--which has to be done. If it were up to you guys, I wouldn't worry so much. And I'm sure you've thought of this.

Unfortunately, it's not up to you--it's up to the messy big GC tent that will see what you have, and will go from there.

And about them, I'm not so hopeful.

JCF said...

New York is the most populous state to legalize same sex marriage

Wasn't always. {Sigh. C'mon, California!!! >:-/}

JCF said...

My separate but equally important piece is about the parallel fights for blessing equity in the church and marriage equality in the culture.

With all due respect, Susan, the "Separate But Equally Important" handle I think could lead to misunderstandings (ala IT had above).

I actually trust the GC process. I don't think GC will settle for putting their LGBT contigent in a Gay Ghetto.

It's EQUAL Marriage, for opposite- and same-sex couples, or nothing.

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

Unlike Mary O'Shaughnessy, Murdoch and I read the Episcopal canons on marriage as ironic, given we were together twenty-two years before we married at the Montreal Court House in 2005. I suppose we would need a lot of premarital ghostly counsel to marry in the Episcopal Church. A thirty day waiting period for same-sex couples who have been denied marriage equality for decades makes no sense for us older couples. If we had waited for the denomination to discern how to respond to the world around us we never would have done anything. We had to decide on our own that we matter. Thirty days is not going to make much difference for couples who have been together forever and who have already merged their finances and their lives. The church should probably get out of the marriage business completely. I tend to agree with Luther that the church got into the marriage business to control people's lives.

I am also trying to read the notion that Mark Sisk is "essentially on our side." Does that mean after a spiritual manner? "Essentially" can be read as trying to make up for the lack of tangible support from the guy.

Developing a special rite that would supposedly be for everyone is still an attempt to deflect attention from this system of apartheid. New York State, until it allowed same-sex couples to marry, offered same-sex couples and sex-discordant couples domestic partnership. On paper, city domestic partnership was equal because it was offered to all couples. But there was a big difference that sex-discordant couples could always go for full marriage and get at least 1324 rights at the state level and 1138 at the federal level. Any parallel institution that is set up as a cover for ongoing unequal treatment of same-sex couples can't work.

The denomination must tear down this Berlin Wall of marriage apartheid.

Ann does well to remind us of Martin Luther King's good example. King had learned much from Bayard Rustin, a gay Quaker.


Gary Paul Gilbert

JCF said...

"sex-discordant couples"? O_o

Counterlight said...

Like Mary O, I live in New York. I live in the "marry 'em now" Brooklyn Diocese and go to church in the "wait a minute" Diocese of New York.

I too am inclined to trust the General Convention process in this matter. While support for LGBTs in the diocese is very strong and widespread, there are still communities that are struggling with this issue, especially Latino and Caribbean congregations whose memberships are sometimes deeply split over LGBTs, but are coming around.

In my parish, we do gay weddings (actually they are officially "blessings of civil marriages" until GC makes the final pronouncement, but it's a semantic distinction). The thirty day rule applies to all couples seeking to marry, not just to same sex ones. Our priests will not do instant marriage ceremonies, not even for couples who've been together for decades.

With all due respect to Dr. King in the Birmingham jail, the wait won't be long, and we're waiting for friends to catch up, not for enemies to change their minds.

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

This issue is not about semantics. Any unequal teatment of same-sex couples communicates stigma. Moderates like Sisk promote policies which hurt real people, making it harder to work for the repeal of the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and bringing civil marriage equality to the rest of the country. Equality means equality. Anglican fudge won't do. This is not about "doing gay weddings."

The past two General Conventions are the reason we are in this mess. B033 was never overturned. C056 and D025 were inadquate responses to the ongoing discrimination against LGBTs and same-sex couples in this denomination.

The latest news is that William Franklin, the Bishop of Western New York, has given his priests permission to officiate at civil weddings of same-sex couples. So now we have Long Island, Central New YOrk, and Western New York all ahead of New York (a large part of which is Manhattan). How ironic that Episcopal cghurchgoers in Manhattan have to play catchup with much of the rest of the New York Episcopal dioceses!

With the median age of Episcopaiians rumored to be around 60, many will never see equal protection in their denomination.


Gary Paul Gilbert

Ann said...

I think we have not been courageous enough at General Convention - always settling for "less" -- IMO. I know the church grinds away slowly - much more so than other groups -- but this is grinding people down. Let's be brave and put forth what we really want. Full marriage equality. No one is fooled by our fooling around. Of course it is not up to me as I did not run for Deputy this time around.

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

There is no Latino community in Queens. We have Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Ecuadoreans, Colombians, Peruvians, Argentineans, and many others. One of our State Assemblymembers, Francisco Moya, the first Ecuadorean to get elected to the Assembly, voted enthusiastically for civil marriage equality this year. Francisco is Roman Catholic but, like our other Assemblymember, Michael DenDekker, he voted for equality. (Both are for reproductive rights too.) Our State Senator, Jose Peralta, is Dominican and voted for marriage equality three times in the Assembly and now once in the Senate. Those of us who campaigned for them represented a real hodgepodge of races, ages, creeds, and sexual orientations. I don't buy the argument that Latinos and other people of color do not support equality.

All our Democratic elected officials in Queens supported marriage equality this year. And our City Councilmember, Danny Dromm, who is openly gay, chairs the immigration committee and advocates for allowing immigrants to vote in city elections. Justice issues are justice issues.




Gary Paul Gilbert

Counterlight said...

Oy! With everyone coming to Convention with chips on the shoulder and guns at the ready, I'm predicting stalemate.

IT said...

@Gary I have no problem with asking LGBT couples to wait 30 days and go through counseling, IF that's what straight couples are asked to do.

indeed, we did that for our blessing. The obligatory counseling was tailored to a married couple (as we were) and different from a new couple, as would be done for a straight couple seeking blessing of their civil marriage. The staff acknowledged our long standing relationship specifically. It was a sort of "state of the union" review, and was actually quite interesting.

Asking the community for its blessing shouldn't be a whizz bang all done now thing. Indeed, the way we did it, civilly married some time before the blessing, might be a reasonable model for all. It makes the church part very intentional.

IT said...

@counterlight, JCF, etc:

I will bet a donut at coffee hour that the outcome of GC2012 will be a separate-not-equal, one-size-for-all optional liturgy specific to LGBT people that is emphatically NOT a marriage.

This would be a crushing, agonizing disappointment and TEC would move to the back of the line justice-wise.

Murdoch Matthew said...

Thirty-day wait and counseling for all sounds reasonable as a general rule.* But we have now an extraordinary circumstance in which people who've been waiting for decades have a chance to marry immediately. There should be accommodation for this.

Gary has said to me, in regard to his comments, that calling the pre-wedding contact an "interview" rather than "counseling" would remove most of the objection. (IT, your experience sounds more like interview than counseling.) The priest does need to know how the couple understands what they're doing, and the couple needs to know where the church is coming from. It's possible that one or both parties may find they don't want to continue. There are always banquet halls for hire.

Many straight people, including many of our would-be friends, simply don't get gay people, and that goes double for the ones who know only the shame and terror of the closet. Equality is the aim, which is why we keep schooling politicos to say "marriage equality" rather than"gay marriage." Marriage with a modifier, or as a euphemism, isn't equal.

*When Gary and I married in Montreal, our banns of matrimony were posted in the court house for three weeks before the ceremony. But we were able to do all the preliminaries by mail. A ten-minute interview with the clerk of the court who read our ceremony was all that was required when we appeared in person.

IT said...

I guess we'll agree to disagree, then, Murdoch. To me, the issue is to be treated equally. And since there is (in our parish) a uniform requirement of all couples, straight or gay, we were happy to meet it.

Counterlight said...

I think that the marriage service we will probably get is the marriage service in the BCP with optional pronouns. That's a one-size-fits-all marriage service for absolutely everybody, gay and straight.


Full disclosure: My husband-to-be and I intend to have a secular marriage ceremony. Ours is a religiously mixed marriage, and he is very anti-clerical. I will be lucky to get a priest in attendance to say one blessing over our union. Since so many same sex marriages, like opposite sex marriages, involve people of differing and even conflicting sectarian allegiances, perhaps some kind of separate provision for that circumstance might not be such a bad idea. My significant other would never put up with a religious ceremony in church, and yet, I would like some kind of public blessing on our marriage, even a small one.

I'm quite sure that I am not alone in this situation. Same sex couples have a rather special relationship with religion in general, and Christianity in particular, that differs from most straight folk. Many of our partners are coming a very long distance to accommodate our own religious faith.

Murdoch Matthew said...

IT, in thirty days, we'll have no disagreement. I can wait.

Counterlight, when we married in Montreal, my husband's mother and sister planned to come up from Maine to be witnesses. Their journey took longer than planned, so a canon from the Anglican cathedral and the president of Integrity Montreal attended as back-up. The family did arrive, but it was good to have the church folks on hand. We went to a party the next night with many parishioners and felt entirely at home; then the next day, Sunday, we were mentioned in Prayers of the People at Mass. We were wed to a reading of the Quebec Civil Code, but surrounded by supporters. Good experience.

Counterlight said...

I'm not necessarily talking about physical distance.

JCF said...

I think that the marriage service we will probably get is the marriage service in the BCP with optional pronouns. That's a one-size-fits-all marriage service for absolutely everybody, gay and straight.

Yup. IT, why so blue (re GC)?

[wv, "granted": what I believe GC will do re marriage equality! :-)]

JCF said...

Doug, hope you and Michael work out meaningful wedding arrangement(s) for the both of you. Mazel Tov! :-)

Ann said...

I hope those who believe GC 12 will just change the pronouns for the marriage rite. But I doubt it - too many think marriage is only for opposite sex couples and anything else is against the Bible. GC will probably settle for a separate service just to have something. Just my experience. Too bad we don't have some ACT-Up action planned. But Episcopalians tend to be too nice for those things or maybe it is too old school.
I hope it will be different but in all my years (9) of serving as a Deputy to GC -- I have not seen the courage of that body to move ahead.

IT said...

@ann And once they have SOMEthing in place, there will be strong disincentive for future change. =gay ghetto,permanent 2nd class.

@JCF, I study politics. I predict the church will behave as a political institution, not a prophetic one.

James said...

Wow, what an exchange of opinions.

(1) Mary O'Shaughnessy said... LGBT Christians--especially Anglicans--have many real, and dangerous, enemies.

Yes, and most of them are IN the church - TEC included.

(2) Gary, you speak the truth in each of your posts.

(3) The time to cut bishops slack is long past. They got us into all of the mess in the first place by their love of "the collegiality of Lambeth." They sold the LBGT Episcopalians down the tube with absolutely no second thought (they = as a whole). I no longer trust them to be shepherds of the church. As long as they don't stand up and do the right thing, they don't have the right of respect.

(3) GC will just sit on it's hands and do nothing - situation normal. I can't recall a single GC that did take the bull by the horn on anything. they won't this time, either.

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

I can't predict the future. The future is always to come, says Jacques Derrida, playing on the French avenir (future) and à venir (to come). The future is forever an infinitive.

Those who wish to reform the denomination from within must get the best deal they can. Those who are tired of the organization have been moving to other traditions or no tradition.

Because it is not possible to know the outcome, one must gamble. Reforming from within risks selling out, while running away risks utopianism. Ken Leech says clergy risk becoming cold fish or burned out. Or in some cases both at the same time, I imagine. This could apply to any identity. Richard Rorty the pragamtist philosopher said that when one has something very new to say the danger is that in order to enter a debate one must surrender to agenda set by the opponent. But if one does not speak the language that people understand one risks irrelevance.


All this to say I don't think there are easy answers.

I tend to be impatient about institutions of any sort but without them there would be chaos.


Gary Paul Gilbert

Counterlight said...

If I may stick up for the Episcopal Church, while Holy Mother Rome was busy turning itself into an international pedophile protection organization, the Episcopal Church of its own free will elected and consecrated not one, but two open and partnered gay bishops. The Episcopal Church as an institution suffered some real consequences, the departure of about 10% of its membership, and the wrath of numerous other Anglican churches who have effectively excommunicated the whole church. The Episcopal Church faces the very real prospect of expulsion from the Anglican Communion, or some kind of impaired or "less than ..." status if the proposed Covenant (created to punish the Episcopal Church) becomes adopted Communion-wide.

The Episcopal Church now joins us in the exile we've all endured our entire lives. The church shows no sign of backing down or even regretting its past actions. If anything, the experience in the wilderness has strengthened the resolve of our many friends among its clergy and laity.

Institutions are not abstract things. They are the creations of people, always very fallible and conflicted people who blunder through life collectively as well as individually. The Church is the Body of Christ, and that body isn't particularly athletic or even healthy most of the time, but it's what He's got.

I never ever imagined in all of my long gay years that I would ever see any church go this far on our behalf. An important historic church welcomes us as full members and even leaders.
I'm prepared to trust it, even a little.

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

Anglicanism is not free from child abuse issues, which the Rev. Bede Parry case shows. Rome is not the only institution which tends to listen more to lawyers than to grassroots advocates for the abused. The Presiding Bishop has been recently criticized for a lack of transparency on the Bede Parry case.

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/episcopal_church/time_has_come_for_transparency.html

The monster of the Anglican Covenant also looms. The Covenant has all along been an excuse for Mark Sisk to be lukewarm toward the LGBT community. It took people at Episcopal Cafe to get a report released on how the covenant would change the polity of the Episcopal Church.

And then there is the ongoing issue that this is perhaps the lone mainline denomination which fails to provide a list of congregrations across the country which have gone through education on LGBT issues and have pledged to welcome LGBTs. This may soon change on Long Island.


One cannot know the future in any case.


Gary Paul Gilbert

IT said...

Gary, the Bede Parry case illustrates important issues of transparency and process, but as I understand the timeline, his acts of abuse occurred while he was in Catholic orders 10 years before he became an Episcopal priest, and were largely unknown to TEC.

Therefore I think it is a false equivalence to draw a parallel with the acts of the RC church in covering up for active child abusers, even to the extent of telling their bishops not to cooperate with police, and the decision to let Parry act as a TEC priest, which as far as we know, he did blamelessly.

IT

Ann said...

Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church at the highest levels continue to act just like the RC church -- there is now a second suit against Parry. See Episcopal Café today.

Counterlight said...

If the Episcopal Church is now the twin of Rome, then why are we still part of it?

Maybe I'll just sleep in this Sunday.

IT said...

I'm sorry but I do not see the equivalence here, at least based on what we know. Did TEC coverup ongoing acts of abuse? Did they stonewall police investigations? Did they put a priest knowingly in situations that led to abuse? Did their actions lead to opportunities of abuse?

As far as we know, no. They knew of one incident with a "late teen" from a decade previous to Parry's reception, which was known to but nOt prosecuted by the authorities. His service with TEC before and after reception was blameless.

There may have been lapses in judgement and certainly it has been mishandled but I think it is hyperbole to claim this is "equivalent" to rampant facilitation of pedophilia, based on the facts as we know them.

Counterlight said...

I was being ironic and sarcastic.

Of course you are right. Rome and the Episcopal Church are so very different in so many ways, thank God.

We have nothing like Rome in terms of the scale and depravity of scandal. We have nothing like Cardinal Rigali of Philadelphia recently resigning after a SECOND grand jury report accused the Church of willful negligence in assigning 37(!) accused pedophile priests to positions where they would have contact with children.

The follies and intrigues at 815 pale in comparison.

Counterlight said...

I can't imagine the President of the United States publicly calling the Episcopal Church to account for its crimes and scandals.
The Prime Minister of Ireland did just that recently with the Roman Catholic Church, saying that the Republic of Ireland would reconsider its relationship with the Church. That says a lot about the size and depth of the scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.

Ann said...

But there is this story -- I am not talking about Parry - I am talking about a pattern of stonewalling and re-victimizing victims. I have heard too many stories. And even Bp. Paul Marshall has commented on this behavior.

Ann said...

"Now let's be serious. When 815-level lawyers threaten and cajole
diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the
highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect,
and why do we look down on the RCC? Serious and credentialled
investigative reporters can contact me.

As a rector I had to follow a priest who was simply passed along by
another bishop, and as a bishop have had the same experience with a
staff member who was protected by his bishop, with catastrophic
results here

On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too may people
are walked. 815 refused comment on this story with principled-sounding
obfuscation, which essentially tells it all, doesn't it? There is no
more transparency at 815 than previously, as some of the commentators
above know to their pain.

Posted by Paul Marshall

IT said...

As I commented above on the subject of the post, institutions function politically, not prophetically. Would that the church, above all, would see the difference, and do the right thing.

Counterlight said...

I ask without irony and sarcasm this time, if the Episcopal Church and the Roman Church are equally venal and predatory, then why are we bothering to be members of either one of them?

Counterlight said...

If there are scandals in the Episcopal Church as large and as serious as those of Rome, then I'm leaving. I want no part of it.

Counterlight said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JCF said...

Questionable silence by the ++person at the top notwithstanding, Doug, there are simply "too many wimmins" involved in running TEC, for there to be the kind of "Old Boys Club" cover-up we see in Rome.

It's the "Anns" of this church who keep it honest.

IT said...

Wow 47 comments, this is like the old days at Jake's!

Counterlight said...

I believe that you are right, JCF. Also a much larger measure of transparency and much less central authoritarianism helps.

Congratulations IT on a thought and argument provoking blog. Well done!

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

The links posted by Ann show how Episcopal Church leaders have covered up abuse. Being a "one strike" denomination on paper is better than not having a strict policy. But the institution has to be made to honor its commitments to justice. Saying it can't happen hear I don't find very persuasive. Women are not necessarily any more concerned about this issue than men. The PB herself has been accused of being soft on abuse.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Gary Paul Gilbert said...

I should have proofread. Sorry.


The links posted by Ann show how Episcopal Church leaders have covered up abuse. Being a "one strike" denomination on paper is better than not having a strict policy. But the institution has to be made to honor its commitments to justice. Saying it can't happen here I don't find very persuasive. Women are not necessarily any more concerned about this issue than men. The PB herself has been accused of being soft on abuse.

Ann said...

Not sure I would call her "soft" on abuse -but too captive of her Chancellor -- too bad the President of the House of Deputies chancellor is not part of KJS advice team.