The House of Deputies consistently has taken the side of the down-and-out, arguing, advocating and producing special funds for the poor in 1967, insisting on civil rights for blacks in the 1950s and 1960s, supporting the full inclusion of women in the church in the 1970s and 1980s, and gradually doing the same for gays and lesbians beginning in 1979.

While this was going on (and even today), the House of Deputies was predominantly white, middle-upper income, male and straight. In all of these cases, the programs created benefited very different people, not the deputies themselves.

Though there are currently more women in the HoD than ever before, they still are not a majority, though the top two officers in the church are women. This wouldn't have happened if the Episcopal Church hadn't been the first to ordain women. We were told we were being too hasty, hadn't consulted enough, needed to wait, etc., but fortunately the minority that is the Episcopal Church proceeded according to its beliefs.

The gay and lesbian population in the Episcopal Church is probably not much different than in the rest of society, but we have (in some places) created a climate where people are not afraid to admit their orientation and relationships and do not live in fear that by doing so they will be persecuted.

The battle in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion is not a simple battle between righteousness and sin. Those who have fought for years for the theological truth that we all are seen as equal in the sight of God believe there is something more at stake here than some kind of willy-nilly flouting of the things that God really wants us to concentrate on.

When people throughout the world are losing jobs, are having their houses burned down, cannot gather together in public without breaking the law and are lynched and murdered without their killers being brought to justice, in all these cases because they are gay, then we aren't talking about something inconsequential. As long as we wait to do justice for these people and delay telling the rest of the world that we no longer are willing to live with homophobia and discrimination, then I think we put our mortal souls in peril. This is a faith issue, not just some kind of half-baked sociological exercise.

The archbishop of Nigeria and others already have crossed provincial boundaries and invaded the Episcopal Church and have repeatedly said that they would not stop doing so. Why should we say that we are wrong to be passionate about the place of all God's children in his church, that we admit that we've been bad, and think that  making nice for a few years with people whose opinions about gays we abhor will somehow bring love and unity?

The archbishop of Nigeria is standing up for what he believes. Why should we do less?