"NewsWrap" for the week ending June 24, 2006 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #952, distributed 6-26-06) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Bill Kelley, and Rex Wockner] Reported this week by Sheri Lunn and Jon BeauprĂ©   Several Christian denominations have been debating Holy Scripture and homosexuality, and it's been rough going almost everywhere. The 2.3 million-member U.S. Episcopal Church, part of the global Anglican Communion, held its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio this week, where it elected a pro-LGBT woman as the Communion's first female Presiding Bishop, and refused to issue an outright ban on ordaining openly queer bishops. The final resolution on the subject did not declare a complete moratorium, something the Church's more conservative members, and branches of the Anglican Communion in many other countries, had demanded.  Outgoing Episcopal primate Frank Griswold offered a carefully-worded motion committing the Church to "exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate for the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider Church and will lead to further strains."  His proposal passed in the 300-member House of Bishops on a show of hands, and was approved by lopsided margins by both clergy and lay delegates in the more than 800-member House of Deputies.   The Anglican Communion, a loose-knit group of 38 national churches representing 77 million people around the world, has been in crisis since 2003.  That's when the U.S. Episcopal Church ordained partnered openly gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, and Canadian Anglicans began blessing same gender marriages. Robinson told the Convention that he is "not an abomination in the eyes of God... I desperately want to preserve this Communion," he said, "but I can't do so at the expense of my own integrity and that of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ." Newly elected Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Nevada Diocese supported Robinson's elevation to Bishop in 2003.  Schori told a "CNN" reporter this week that she does not believe homosexuality is a sin.  "I believe that God creates us with different gifts," she said.  "Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us.  Some people come into this world with affections ordered towards other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender." No doubt exacerbating increasing divisions within the Communion, Schori flaunted her feminist credentials by preaching in her first sermon as Presiding Bishop, "Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children.  If wwe’re going to keep on growing into Christ images for the world around us, we’re going to have to give up fear."  Schori will be installed to her 9-year term in a November 4th ceremony in Washington, DC's National Cathedral.   In the first major reaction by international Anglican primates soon after the Convention ended, a dozen African archbishops suggested that they're preparing for a formal split.  Addressing the U.S. Episcopal Church, the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa meeting in Uganda issued a statement saying, "We have observed the commitment shown by your Church to the full participation of people in same gender sexual relationships in civic life, church life and leadership.  We have noted the many affirmations of this throughout the convention.  As you know, our Churches cannot reconcile this with the teaching on marriage set out in the Holy Scriptures and repeatedly affirmed throughout the Anglican Communion."  They went on to offer a new home for conservative American Episcopalians upset by the direction of their Church, a further signal that a split in the Anglican Communion may only be a matter of time. The Reverend Susan Russell, president of Integrity, an advocacy group for gay and lesbian Episcopalians, told the "New York Times" that "We're being treated like bargaining chips in the game of Anglican politics."   Mainline Protestant groups, including U.S. Methodists and the country's largest Lutheran branch, have struggled for decades over the traditional Christian condemnation of homosexual acts, even as gays and lesbians have pushed for full inclusion in their churches. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) decided during its National Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama this week to allow openly gay clergy, lay elders and deacons to work with local congregations.  The measure, approved by a 298-to-221 vote, maintains a Presbyterian Church law that says clergy and lay elders and deacons must limit sexual relations to heterosexual marriage, but also says that restriction is not "essential."  That will allow local congregations and regional presbyteries in the 2.3 million-member Church to exercise some flexibility when choosing clergy and lay officers, including non-celibate lesbian or gay candidates. Conservative factions are threatening to leave the Presbyterian Church over the move.  According to a report in "Pink News," 13 evangelical groups immediately issued a statement saying the new edict had "throw[n] our denomination into crisis," and that it "marks a profound deviation from biblical requirements, and we cannot accept, support, or tolerate it."  The statement cryptically added, "We will take the steps necessary to be faithful to God."   The United Church of Christ announced this week that one of its regional units, the United Evangelical Church of Puerto Rico, has voted by a 3-to-1 margin to leave the denomination because of its liberal policies on homosexuality.  The Reverend John Thomas, president of the 1.3 million-member Church, said that "theological differences" had increased during the past few years, especially "regarding the membership and ministry of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians."  The final straw apparently came when the United Church of Christ's Annual synod endorsed same gender marriage last year.  Prior to the Puerto Rico decision, the denomination reported that 49 U.S. congregations had quit over the marriage equality issue, though dissenters count at least 77.   Latvia’s Christian Democratic Party has called homosexuals "degenerate," so it's no surprise that, for the seventh time, the country's Parliament has rejected a measure to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.  However, President Vaira Vike Freiberga vetoed the decision this week, saying there is a "logical reason" to enact such legislation.  That may be because it was stipulated as a condition for membership when the country joined the European Union in May 2004.  There's no indication yet as to how the Latvian Parliament will respond to the presidential veto.   A ruling party lawmaker in Bermuda said this week that she'll try again to pass a lesbigay anti-bias bill a month after a similar measure failed in the British territory's Parliament. Renee Webb of the Progressive Labor Party said her proposed amendment to the territory's Human Rights Act of 1981 is supported by some members of her party and the opposition United Bermuda Party.  She says she hopes to get a new vote on the issue in November. Lawmakers defeated Webb's bill in a voice vote last month, sparking a protest at the capitol by some 300 demonstrators who criticized Parliament for not even debating the proposal. The amendment, which would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, has drawn the most vocal opposition from religious groups. Premier Alex Scott has called it unnecessary, saying the Human Rights Act already covers all people in Bermuda.  But he said he was open to a possible court ruling that gays and lesbians are not protected by the law.  Dale Butler, Bermuda's minister for human rights, said he would vote for the amendment if it comes up again, but didn't think it would pass because members of Parliament are afraid of voter backlash.   Members of a Parliamentary Committee in Jamaica have made it clear that they will not decriminalize homosexuality in the proposed new Charter of Rights.  But that didn't stop the National AIDS Committee from arguing before the Committee this week that people most at risk of contracting HIV are forced underground by laws banning sex between consenting adult men.  Homophobia, and its pervasive anti-queer harassment and violence, is deeply rooted in Jamaican culture.  Those attitudes seem to be at least tacitly encouraged by the island nation's major religious institutions, which have staunchly opposed decriminalization.   And finally, tensions continue to fester over plans for the international World Pride festival and parade in Jerusalem this August.  Leading Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics have repeatedly and vocally denounced it.  Ibrahim Sarsur, an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset -- Israel's Parliament -- said this week that "This attack is more venomous than the Zionist attack to make Jerusalem Jewish," and that "if gays will dare approach Temple Mount during [the Pride] parade, they will do so over our dead bodies." And while it's a trademark of holier-than-thou religious conservatives to express concern for "children," another lawmaker in Israel has "concerns" about queer children. An international LGBT youth group is scheduled to visit the Knesset during World Pride to see how Israel's government works.  But Otniel Schneller, an M.K. of the ruling Kadima Party, wants to prevent that.  He sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik this week charging that a visit by the youth group would turn the building into "Sodom and Gomorrah." Itzik promptly rejected Schneller's demand.  A fellow Kadima Party M.K., Ronit Tirosh, later told Israel Radio that, "These are children who could be mine or yours.  I am absolutely stunned.  Who are we talking about here; we're talking about human beings.  If they want to visit me in the Knesset they are more than welcome."