Daily Loaf

Almost, anyway...

The Episcopal House of Deputies elected Canon Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. His appointment to the post by the House of Bishops, his future peers, was to be a rubber-stamp routine operation. Robinson would have then become the first openly homosexual person to hold such a high position in one of the major Christian churches - after Canon Jeffrey John turned down his own appointment as the Bishop of Reading.

While there is, if not evidence, then at least certainly, indication that there have even been gay popes, most notably Julius III (sugardaddied a 17-year-old from Parma), Benedict IX (voted 'Worst Pope Ever'), and John XII (arranged orgies in the Lateran Basilica). Catholic tradition even knows gay saints, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, and Sts. Polyeuct and Nearchos - although both pairs tread on the fine line between homosexuality and homosociality.

Of course, it itsn't the Catholic church that is on the verge of admitting a reality they've been trying to deny for two millennia now; that gay men and women have been and will always be as intrinsic a part of the Holy Church as they are of society in general. Even if every single gay person were to leave the Catholic church today, in a generation you'd find the ranks replenished through birth. But, in the meantime, let them stick to their considerations.

So all that is standing between Gene Robinson and his bishopric is a silly allegation from a man who refuses to expound on what is "inappropriate touching", and e-mail spam sent to some bishops claiming that the website of an organisation Rev. Robinson endorses (i.e. he does not own the website, nor does he blog there, nor is he its webmaster) contained a link to a site that contains a link to a site that has, I kid ye not, 'pornographic images'! What is this?! Are they playing the two-degrees-of-porn-separation -game? On a network that was built on pornography, accidentally running into some gratuitous booty isn't exactly a feat.

Now read the fine print: "they discovered a link to a site called bisexuality.com and there found a window with pornographic images." Seeing as how the site is actually just a front to an organisation selling unused but reserved domains, and advertises just about everything under the sun, why won't we all join hands and shout a few happy words in the ears of these dimwit silver surfers: they're called popups!

The whole mess will likely be cleared up in no time and we'll all have a good laugh at those who resorted to these pathetic ad-hominem attacks, but in the meantime, I offer some alternative food for the soul: apparently Cherie Blair's thrilling karaoke rendition of The Beatles' "When I'm 64" has become a huge hit on Ibiza! Somebody recorded her performance during the Blairs' recent Asia tour, and must've forwarded the samples to a dj. The P2P-sphere wasn't awash in it, yet, but as most of Europe heads for vacations in August, this might still become the song you'll remember from the summer of '03. They're never the good ones, after all.