Validating LGBT Clergy

You've got to really admire the humility of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The former Nobel Peace Prize Winner, not to mention the former chair of South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has a pretty unbelievable way of seeing the humanity in everyone, from former child soldiers to patients with HIV/AIDS to brutal officials in the South African apartheid regime. When he speaks, particularly about human rights, there's a certain sense of gravitas that comes with his words.

Which is why his response to a TIME magazine question about whether he supports the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy is so touching. For Tutu, it's not just an option of whether to support the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. It's a requirement of his faith.

"If I don't support them, why support the appointment of any other person? Their sexuality is as much a part of who they are as my race is. They don't choose it. I don't choose it," Tutu answers. "Two of my chaplains when I was Archbishop were gay. One is now a bishop, and the other is the dean of a cathedral."

How timely, given that the world is likely about to witness the ordination of the second openly LGBT Episcopalian bishop, Mary Glasspool. Word came today that 61 out of 110 Episcopalian dioceses in the U.S. voted to confirm Glasspool, moving her to the precipice of becoming a bishop. And for good reason. She's been exemplary in her service to the Church's mission of social justice. And that's really all that should matter, rather than prying into her sexual orientation or criticizing the person she loves.

The Tutu "q&a" over at TIME is fascinating on another level, and that has to do with folks who might not be feeling very hopeful right now when it comes to Uganda. That country is debating an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would create some of the most extreme punishments imaginable for LGBT people in the country. Tutu's reassurance to everyone is not to lose hope during times like these. Future generations will clear up misconceptions about Africa, and that should change hearts and minds.

"You have bad governments. But we have good governments too. We have the world's icon -- Nelson Mandela. But as I always say, Europe gives me a great deal of hope. They produced a Holocaust. They produced two world wars. They produced the gulags," Tutu says, noting that despite all of this evil, there has emerged a rather progressive continent in many parts where human rights are enshrined.

Might one day we be saying the same about Uganda, or perhaps Saudi Arabia, where a gay man was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and a year in prison just for starring in a YouTube video deemed too gay? One can only hope. But it's good to have Tutu's reassurance that sometimes the world really does take evil and make some lemonade out of it.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons