Funny AND faithy

Via dotCommonweal, Parade magazine--that's right, Parade--has a very interesting interview with Stephen Colbert, in which he discusses his faith at some length.

Dozens of papers want to know--what exactly happened at the New Orleans meeting?

Lots of coverage today of the statement coming out of the Episcopal bishops' meeting in New Orleans. The language is careful and complicated, leading to widely varying angles in the dailies. (Over at dotCommonweal, Robert Imbelli points out the significant distance between the Times and Globe pieces.) The AP story also portrays this as mostly a conservative victory. The Times-Picayune has one of the better, more balanced pieces.

A summary, from the statement itself:

• We reconfirm that resolution B033 of General Convention 2006 (The Election Of Bishops) calls upon bishops with jurisdiction and Standing Committees "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."
• We pledge as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.
• We commend our Presiding Bishop's plan for episcopal visitors.
• We deplore incursions into our jurisdictions by uninvited bishops and call for them to end.
• We support the Presiding Bishop in seeking communion-wide consultation in a manner that is in accord with our Constitution and Canons.
• We call for increasing implementation of the listening process across the Communion and for a report on its progress to Lambeth 2008.
• We support the Archbishop of Canterbury in his expressed desire to explore ways for the Bishop of New Hampshire to participate in the Lambeth Conference.
• We call for unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety, and dignity of gay and lesbian persons.

This is presented as a consensus statement, not that of a narrow majority. (Only one "nay" vote was audible, though several conservatives were absent at the time of the vote.) Given this, I'm particularly interested in the strong language about "incursions into our jurisdictions,"as it seems to echo my own sentiment that the practice of U.S. congregations forming relationships with overseas bishops is at least as troubling as the actual differences regarding the authority/interpretation of scripture or regarding homosexuality itself.

Actually, I think it's far more troubling, for two reasons. First, I believe that if a hierarchical polity is good for anything, it's for functioning as a church of churches, with bishops beings pastors of pastors and so on. This implies several things--the value of community for its own sake, not as a reflection of like-mindedness; the importance of working out conflict within the context of a commitment to ongoing fellowship; and especially the importance of a sense of place, of literal/geographical closeness. While I'm well aware that neither side has behaved consistently well in this conflict, I feel especially distant from the conservatives who have left TEC--because their vision of the purpose of a church structure seems to be quite different from mine.

Second, this sort of globalized, post-local affiliation can also lead to troubling situations, conflicts that motivate church leaders to say things like, "I've never been to Rwanda, but we're Rwandans now." It may be a well-intentioned and deferential statement, but it's also complete nonsense: No, you're not. Rwanda is a place, and place matters.

Big screens at church?!

Abram notes in the comments to an earlier post that the Washington Post is the best newspaper in the country, and I happen to agree. (I agree with him about some, though not all, of the more important things he said in his comment as well, but that's for another time.)

Anyway, WaPo just discovered megachurches! I had to double check to make sure the article wasn't from, you know, sometime when I was a kid...very strange. The piece's hook is specifically about the use of technology, but its breathless ignorance of how completely established this sort of thing is in the evangelical church is pretty funny.

Though I'm certainly not done with the megachurch debates myself. This quote provoked me to laugh derisively, like a good small-church mainliner:

During a recent sermon at St. Paul's Collegiate Church in Storrs, Conn., worshipers sent text messages to the cellphone of the lead pastor, Benjamin Dubow, the substance of which he then integrated into his sermon.

"Prayer is supposed to be a conversation," Dubow said. "We did this to help people engage in the conversation live during the service."

Wow. I can't imagine how we ever could have done that in my small ELCA church in Chicago...oh wait, we did. The pastor just asked for input, and people gave it, with their mouths.

Automatic Bob

I'm embarrassed to say I missed this when it was posted more than a year ago, no doubt due in part to the fact that I'm a far bigger fan of Bob Herbert than I am of Evan Coyne Maloney. Still, I'm an even bigger fan of writing, and this is pretty funny.

Link from Alan Jacobs.

"There is no 'ultimatum' involved"

This is interesting--the Archbishop of Canterbury is downplaying the September 30 deadline the Anglican Primates gave for a TEC response.

Not so fast, Dobson

Gary Bauer has criticized James Dobson for trashing Fred Thompson, and Richard Land has defended Thompson directly.

What the hell's going on over in religious right land? These guys need to get their ducks in a row so they can start mobilizing voters in a marginally legal fashion!

Actually, to be fair, Land and even Bauer have often been far more reasonable and less reactionary public figures than Dobson. Moderates, however, they are not.

Thanks to my friend John for sending me the Land story.

Peter Steinfels on "hiring for mission"

Peter Steinfels is eloquent (though verbose) as usual in this post on the question of Catholic universities trying to "hire Catholic."

(I particularly appreciate his correctly referring to Chaucer's poetry as being written in Middle English. If I have to hear one more NPR story referring to it as OLD English, the English grad student of my past and the finicky fact checker and editor of my present might have to get together and march over there--it's not far--and say some things. Some very serious things. [This lengthy aside is not the reason I'm posting this. Steinfels' piece really is worth a read.])

Akinola at Wheaton

The controversial Nigerian archbishop preached at a conservative Anglican gathering at Wheaton College (my alma mater) this past weekend. It's a reasonable enough location for such a gathering; in the last several years it seems you can't throw a Bible at a Wheaton-area homosexual without hitting a new non-Episcopal Anglican church. Still, I found it very strange to watch video of the event happening in the chapel in which I worshiped with the campus community, performed with several ensembles, received my diploma, and sat through countless chapel speakers (some, admittedly, more offensive to me than Akinola is, though also much lower profile).

The protest outside the chapel was scantly attended, and if it included people from the college community, that wasn't clear in the Tribune article and video. Back in my day, I'd like to think a lot of my friends would have been out there. But other friends would have been inside. That's the way this thing has gone...

Which brings me back to what I think is one of the more important questions about this whole mess, and indeed about all schismatic moments in the wider church: what does it look like for individual clergy, laypeople, or even congregations to be in communion with people with whom they are no longer in Communion?

Mystery solved

I was disappointed to learn that the legal filing in response to Neb. state Sen. Ernie Chambers lawsuit was not, in fact, from God Godself.

This is maybe the silliest thing I've ever seen. It did, however, give us the chance to see various papers publish this AP photo, depicting Sen. Chambers' face framed by an electric-fan halo.

Bernard Holland on church music

The NYT music critic has few useful things to say about worship itself, as he's concerned largely with the church's potential role as patron of/inspiration for the arts. Among his variously predictable and bizarre points:

• In the good old days, music was an advertisement for heaven, which is good.
  
• In the bad new days, using "ethnic" music is just an advertisement for diversity, which is bad (the advertisement, not the diversity itself).
  
• The most legitimate argument against high-art church music is that really good music might distract churchgoers from more important things. The same is true of great liturgical poetry--which is why Anglicans are a bunch of godless aesthetes.
  
• The best church music is black gospel, followed by the Verdi requiem.
• High-church music is essentially Catholic, as it emphasizes the distance between the clergy and laity rather than their essential community/unity.

I understand that this is from the arts section, that it's intended to be about composers more than about church itself. But it's just so staggeringly out of touch--for instance, is it possible that Holland is unaware that, back in the real world of actual music happening in actual churches, the overwhelming majority of great classical church music since the Reformation has come out of the Protestant tradition, and the bulk of influential folk/popular liturgical music since Vatican II has come out of the Catholic church?

Whatever--the MSM wouldn't be itself w/o the ocassional cultural piece that is both brazenly elitist and hilariously out of touch, and I spend every Sunday afternoon w/ the NYT I have, not the NYT I wish I had. And if you're interested, you could always check out this church music piece from a very churchy guy writing for the independent press.

Thompson unfazed by Dobson

The presidential candidate is downplaying the e-mail in which James Dobson harshly criticized him. Thompson also makes this crucial point: "I have a lot of friends who I think are friends of his."

No real reason to believe that Thompson is as unconcerned as he'd have us believe. Of course, this is the guy who didn't know there was oil in the Everglades, so I suppose anything's possible.

Jena and Obama

I wish that Obama was marching in Jena today--as I wish that the other candidates were, along w/ many more white people than actually showed up (one of Diane Rehm's guests this morning said it was about 98 percent black), and, for that matter, me. It's terrible that the political calculus motivates the candidates to maintain a bit of distance and/or prioritize other things, and it's frustrating that they don't just insist on going down there anyway.

Still, I think Jesse Jackson's being a bit hard on Obama. While ideally Obama--and the others--would do more than release statements, his comments themselves are spot on. And it's hard to imagine Jackson's criticism having much effect on the way Obama positions himself as a candidate, as he's already doing an impressive job balancing the different things he represents to different people.

"Not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

James Dobson has anti-endorsed another candidate (speaking only as a private citizen, of course). Second time he's done that this cycle (though this time is was in an ostensibly private e-mail, which Dobson never intended to have leaked, etc.).

This could be real trouble for Thompson, though it will be hard to gauge its effect with any certainty. But I am among those who insist that Dobson remains probably the most influential religious leader in the country, despite the weekly-or-so MSM reports that "many" or "some" or "young" evangelicals are now more likely to listen to, say, Wendell Berry.

Oh, that it were so. In the meantime, the candidate trying to position himself as the only GOP heavyweight w/ social conservative bona fides just got trashed by the guy most able to motivate the religious right to spank their kids, fear the gays, ignore the environmentalists, call their representatives, or vote in a particular way (or at all).

Federal judge confirms that the U.S. is a Judeo-Christian nation!

Another entirely symbolic victory for the religious conservatives.

My whole life I've been close to the evangelical world in one way or another, and I've never for a moment understood why this matters.

The Edgiest Display of Editorial Independence award

From the Onion:

Several models said they were initially drawn in by American Apparel's progressive environmental policies, sweatshop-free manufacturing, and youthful corporate identity. But their dreams of success were soon shattered.

"Before I knew it, I was squatting on the floor in this humid room with a camera pointed at my crotch," said model Gabrielle, whose image can be found on the back page of this newspaper.

Taxation without representation

A big defeat for D.C. voting rights.

This is the closest we've gotten, but now it looks as though it'll be awhile.

Gore in 1992

Remember when much of the left voted for a third party or stayed home because this guy was deemed inadequately liberal or independent or pure or whatever to deserve a vote for president?

Actually, probably not--why should we remember 2000 now if we couldn't remember 1992 then?

Exceptionalism and fundamentalism

This conversation between James Carroll and Tom Engelhardt is worth a read.

I've had Constantine's Sword sitting on my shelf for a few years now and keep not getting to it. Here, Carroll meanders a bit but makes some very interesting observations about U.S. religion, foreign policy, and military culture.

Also: I learned something I didn't know, though perhaps you did--according to Carroll, it was Roger Williams, not Jefferson, who first talked explicitly about the concept of separation.

(Yet) another example that the ACLU is not, in fact, just a bunch of God-hating killjoys

T. Jeremy Gunn has a thoughtful piece on the foot-bath controversy.

He actually voted to be adult baptized before he was infant baptized

The latest John McCain flip-flopping story finds him distancing himself from the Episcopal church. (And wouldn't you, if you were trying to establish your social conservative bona fides right now? Which reminds me--while I disagree with McCain on any number of issues, I think it's unfair the way religious conservatives won't give him the time of day. Apparently McCain-Feingold--which was intended to restrict all sorts of "issue ads," not just the anti-abortion ones--and a years-old shot at Falwell and Robertson are enough to make people ignore the fact that the senator's actual voting record on abortion is mighty similar to Sam Brownback's.)

Anyway--McCain claimed yesterday to be Baptist, despite his Episcopal heritage and the fact that he's never joined the Baptist church at which he worships. This actually makes a certain amount of sense to me, as I suspect it does to many (though certainly not all) Protestants. I was dedicated as an infant in a Baptist church and raised and baptized in a nondenominational church with no formal membership rolls (and a relatively low view of baptism). At present I work at an Episcopal church at which I'm also deeply invested as a parishioner, but I remain a member of a Lutheran church halfway across the country--though I was never formally received into the denomination.

When people ask me about my denominational affiliation, my answer varies with the context of the question. Still, that's a bit different from an answer that varies based on what a given group of people want to hear. Backpedaling today, McCain said that "the most important thing is that I am a Christian." I don't know John, that sounds pretty broadly inclusive, pretty un-culture-war-ish, pretty Episcopalian...

"'An effective form of advertising'"

Daniel Gross has a good piece on business and greenwashing.

Buy my CD!

I had an idea--even though I'm not actively promoting my second album, it should still be available online, cause someone somewhere might want one. So, only three years after making the thing--which I'm actually pretty proud of, lest this post suggest otherwise--it's available over at CD Baby.

A conspiracy!

Tim Grieve, perhaps my favorite political blogger, has a pretty persuasive takedown of Rudy Giuliani, perhaps my least favorite presidential candidate.

"Offer the Ram of Pride instead"

Interesting piece in the Tribune about the High Holidays and the various creative ways in which rabbis deal with the story of Abraham and Isaac--a difficult enough passage even for the faithful, and certainly not an easy way to engage the occasional worshipers and the visitors in attendance on Rosh Hashanah.

I've always been fascinated by the story, not least because of the many provocative ways (some more orthodox than others) in which people (clergy, theologians, writers, philosophers) have interpreted/used it over the years. One of my favorites--Wilfred Owen, in a poem later set to music by Benjamin Britten.

(I had the pleasure of singing this piece with my college choir. Years earlier, I sang the Isaac solo in a children's musical written by my father. Both meaningful experiences, for different reasons.)

Midwest floods

Via Samuel Fromartz, Gretta Wing Miller has a short documentary about the flooding that has devastated vegetable growers in the upper Midwest (where I come from).

The best part: seeing how co-ops and natural food stores are helping out, promising to buy as much as they can of whatever the farms have left.

The worst part: when a flooding stream saturates the land with whatever it's carrying from upstream--in a region where you're never too far from industrial grain or diary farms--it raises questions about organic certification for the following year. Yet another example of how "organic" has become in many ways the opposite of what it was intended to be.

This whole situation is a reminder of the value of CSAs--by investing in the farm itself, you take part in its losses and its bounty alike, whether that means a whole box of extra peaches in July or helping absorb this sort of financial catastrophe.

Hog farms and exports

Tom Philpott asks the right question, one that people with all different kinds of priorities can rally behind: "Why let the U.S. become manure lagoon to the world?"

Federal court on states and auto emissions

An important victory in the fight to reduce oil consumption.

Via Gristmill.

Obama and CBN

This looks like pretty interesting stuff--the Obama faith tour seems to be genuinely initiating some real conversations about the role of faith in public life, not just stumping for their guy.

Videos are posted over at CBN. That's right, the media company founded and run by Pat Robertson. Commentary, by CBN's David Brody, is remarkably positive in tone.

I think Obama's people are on to something here.

Resisting the church of niche marketing

From Kevin Baker, posting at Theolog: A brief, spot-on defense of parish-oriented, non-"targeted" ministry.

"You have heard that it was said..."

It looks like Stevie Lamar Fields may me executed after all.

In the trial, the foreman read aloud a list of reasons to impose the death penalty, including isolated quotes from Hebrew Bible punishment codes. While I don't know what faith tradition (if any) the foreman is part of, this sort of prooftexting and by-the-letter-ism sounds an awful lot like a certain brand of biblicist evangelicalism I know all too well.

Speaking of the evangel, I wonder if anyone read the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman, or the crucifixion, or any of the other gospel references to...oh wait. I can't think of any other references to capital punishment in the gospels--just the time Jesus prevents a culturally sanctioned execution and the time when he's the victim of one.

Also: the time that Jesus explicitly rejects the eye-for-an-eye justice referenced in this trial.

Yes, that's very important, too

Lots of interesting stuff in the Pew survey released last week. One item that's gotten some attention is a question asking repondents how important each of the following issues is to their vote for president: the Iraq war, domestic issues, and social issues. The last of the three gets the fewest "very important" responses--even among white evangelicals.

But the question doesn't ask people to rank the three issues/areas, just to rate each one's importance independently. So the survey doesn't do much to answer what I think is the biggest question about evangelical political behavior--to what degree will the environment/poverty/war/whatever start to be a priority to a large number of evangelicals, as opposed to another issue that's "very important" (but perhaps less very important than, say, protecting your marriage from the gays and lesbians who seek to tear it apart)?

Unless we've switched to a system in which individuals get to vote directly on individual policy questions and no one's told me, this would seem to be the more important question.

"I've never even been to Rwanda, but we are Rwandans now."

A single minor news story neatly presents some of the best reasons both U.S. congregations and non-U.S. bishops should think twice about forging formal ecclesial relationships--reasons that have nothing to do with homosexuality or the authority of scripture.

The CT headline is telling as well, summing up only half of the problem.

In which David Roberts makes a good point and we cynical enviros feel duly scolded

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/6/144919/0323

CT on Zionism

CT has been generally pretty impressive over the last couple years on Middle East-related issues--balanced, non-reactionary, airing a variety of views. This piece is thoughtful and informative. The question is whether it represents the evangelical mainstream to the degree that a CT unsigned editorial once did (and perhaps continues to on other topics).

D. James Kennedy died today

Article here.

Some issues never go away

This one's been energizing anti-hierarchical and anti-clerical movements for hundreds of years.

Depression-era faith

Looks like a very interesting photo exhibit.

What on earth is Good Morning America up to?

New poll asks the important questions.

I got this link from my friend John, who added,"In related news, fifty-two percent of Americans said they’d rather wash a dog with John Edwards than John McCain, and forty-nine percent said they’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich with Mitt Romney than Barack Obama."

15 shots fired at an unarmed man

Not sure how I missed this detail months ago, but in case you did, too--along with the hundreds of thousands of people who have signed a petition demanding a presidential pardon for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, 100+ members of the House have cosponsored a bill to the same effect (including five Democrats).

Good Salon piece on how Lou Dobbs et al. managed to turn these guys into heroes.

An entirely different context

The Church of Nigeria, the second largest province in the Anglican Communion, is well known as of late for its theological and social conservatism. But it's important to remember that this exists in an utterly different cultural context than that of CANA and other U.S. conservative Anglican bodies--one in which, for instance, a bishop's family is repeatedly targeted with violent attacks. In such a situation, what would motivate you to liberalize/deliteralize your reading of a text filled with sectarian intensity, with hope for the oppressed faithful and judgment for their enemies? And even if you were sympathetic to more progressive ideas about sexuality, it'd be easy to place this a ways down your list of priorities. These factors, however, have almost nothing in common with the conservatism found in, say, Northern Virginia.

It's not at all clear if or how this marriage of convenience will sustain itself. Nor, for that matter, is it clear that many Episcopalian critics of Archbishop Akinola and his African allies have any sense of the context in which they read their scripture and do their theology.

For an extremely informative (and fairly neutral) look at the conflict in the Anglican Communion, see the recent Pew Forum event with Philip Jenkins.

More labor endoresements for Edwards

Last week the carpenters and joiners; this week the steelworkers and the miners.

Another heartwarming statement from Rep. Tancredo

On Katrina spending.

The real threat to the orthodox

Evolution, gayness, the ACLU, Hollywood, or Episcopalians? Nope--it's yoga.

Constantinople, the new Canterbury

Via Commonweal, pretty good piece in TNR about the trend of evangelical-to-Orthodox conversion. Author Jason Zengerle knows the U.S. religious landscape fairly well, but he misses some important points.

Zengerle situates his story in Wheaton, Illinois, making for an odd juxtaposition when he brings up the anti-intellectual strain of evangelical heritage. It's not clear if Zengerle's aware that, at this point, Wheaton is not so much the center of evangelicalism itself--Colorado Springs holds that title--as of specifically intellectually rigorous evangelicalism. This overlooked fact troubles his idea that the converts he talks to in Wheaton are motivated largely by their own tradition's intellectual shallowness--that stereotype ends up being (even) less true in Wheaton than elsewhere. (Zengerle even quotes Mark Noll, but without mentioning that, before his recent move to Notre Dame, Noll was for years a high-profile and beloved Wheaton College professor.)

While this may seem a rather fussy objection, it's important because, had Zengerle noted the highly intellectual nature of Wheaton evangelicalism, it might have led him to conclude that the conversion phenomenon must be about something very different from (or at least in addition to) a desire for "smarter" church. Seems to me that many folks who leave the evangelical fold for more traditional practice are seeking not a deeper intellectual setting so much as one that is not defined exclusively or even primarily on intellectual terms at all.

In other words, the goal is not smarter but rather more mystical. After all, U.S. evangelicalism, even outside the Wheaton world, is in general not lacking in developed doctrine so much as in an appreciation for the limits of doctrine of any kind. One's hard pressed to find a significant appreciation for mysticism in the modernist-rationalist evangelical world; even the emergent movement has tended to be more about an intellectual faith with a vaguely postmodern flavor and quasi-mystical trappings than actual mystical spiritual experience. But there's much mysticism to be found in a variety of traditions that pre-date the U.S.--whether Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, or certainly Orthodox. The more learned and rigorous your evangelical context--the more Wheaton (or Calvin or Westmont) profs in the pews--the more you might feel this utter lack of anything right-brained, non-verbal, etc.

Yes, the subject of renewalism (Pentecostal/charismatic movements) throws a whole additional factor into this subject, but I think I'll lay off for now, as this post is getting quite long...

(Okay, one more thing: Zengerle also situates this conversion phenomenon within the worship wars, which strikes me as odd--whatever the best strategy is for those who seek to protect the Great Hymns of White Europe from the play-the-God-Rock-and-the-kids-will-dig-it crowd, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with...chucking both options in favor of hours of choral chant.)

Turns out "the environment" is full of people, many of them poor

Amanda Griscom Little (who writes for both Grist and Outside) has a piece in today's NYT magazine about the environmental justice movement and two Sen. Clinton-sponsored bills--one that would make the EPA (remember the EPA? Apparently there's a whole federal agency charged with protecting the environment!) pay more attention to the health effects of industry and another that would direct federal money toward localities facing serious environmental problems.

It's just a little one-pager on p. 17 (not quite significant enough to run ahead of an old Nixon/Agnew man's musings on some prepositional phrase or whatever). Still, great to see an MSM piece on environmental justice amid the din of How to Buy Your Way Out of Global Catastrophe environmental coverage.

Praise the Lord and pass the CFLs

Interfaith Power and Light has launched an online store for eco-conscious congregations.

If you've visited this blog before, you may already know that I'm deeply skeptical both of trying to save the earth by buying different, cooler stuff AND of the idea that the creation care movement will lead to a significant change in the U.S. religious and/or political landscape.

However, as Glenn Hurowitz reports, Greater Washington IFL finds that 30 percent of congregations that install LED exit signs end up getting involved also in bona fide environmental activism. That's an exciting statistic, and while I fear that the movement will always be largely about individual choices (an emphasis rather ingrained in at least the evangelical community) and not about systemic change, I'm hopeful that I'll ultimately be proved wrong.

The only married boys in Des Moines

Exactly one couple managed to get married in the 23-hour span during which same-sex marriage was legal in Iowa. An absurd consequence of a national debate that has generally been defined on absurd terms.

One of the best Onion stories ever, on the subject of the supposed threat same-sex marriage poses to the rest of us.

Italian Church hosts eco-youth rally

Pope Benedict, to 300,000 young people: "Discover the beauty of love, but not disposable love, that is here today and gone tomorrow, that is deceitful and prisoner of an egoistic and materialistic mentality but a love that is real and deep."

Wise words, even if the eco-connection is a bit of a stretch. At any rate, the event is substantively more impressive than the Vatican's publicizing its carbon-free status (inviting a variety of mildly offensive indulgence jokes).

I don't envy Rowan Williams' job

The Archbishop of Canterbury is coming to the States this month to...well, it's not clear what he'll be able to accomplish, exactly. This Western Mail piece includes an atypical number of quotes from Williams, quotes that reveal nothing other than the utter carefulness with which he must speak as of late on any topic related to the U.S. church, homosexuality, or the authority of scripture. While it's not clear what ultimately will happen to TEC and to the Anglican Communion, what is clear is that the archbishop's main task--preventing schism--is getting constantly harder and may well prove impossible.

My circles of Anglican and Episcopal friends include a wide sample of opinions on the issues at play here. What most all of us agree about is how very, very sad the whole situation makes us.

How about "I don't solicit strangers--male or female--for sex"?

To add to the list of areas of common ground for people w/ different beliefs about homosexuality: I hope we can all agree that it will count as progress when someone in Sen. Craig's position doesn't feel the need to defend himself primarily in terms of not being gay.

Meanwhile, looks like he's resigning.