A Northern Virginia circuit court judge has ruled in favor of the break away elements of the Episcopal Church diocese in Virginia. The legal war is hardly anywhere near over and the constitutionality of the 1860's vintage law has yet to be determined. I cannot find a great deal on the judge in the case, Randy I. Bellows, other than he is a former Assistant U. S. Attorney and that he was appointed to the bench in 2002 when the GOP had a strangle hold on the General Assembly and judicial appointments. Such being the case, I can only assume he is very conservative on social issues such as gay rights.
The irony of course is that the law Judge Bellows relies on to reach his result was passed in the Civil War era and was passed so that the Baptist churches that became the Southern Baptist denomination - and which supported slavery and often worked against civil rights for blacks in later years - could retain their property when they parted ways with the northern branch of the denomination. In short, the motivation behind the law was to protect the breakaway Baptist churches from the consequences of their racial bigotry and support of slavery. Judge Bellows has now used this arcane law to once again find in favor of bigots who see other citizens as less than fully human. In Virginia, some things never change.
The other irony is that the self-anointed, self-rigtheous members of these breakaway parishes have aligned themselves with Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola around whom controversy swirls because of his possible involvement in the massacre of Muslims – oops, I forgot, Muslims aren’t Christian so killing them doesn’t count with these folks – and other possible misdeeds. I cannot think of a poorer choice of leader for those who sanctimoniously claim they are Christian. Am I missing something? In any event, here are highlights from the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040401925.html):
A Fairfax County judge has given an initial victory to conservatives from 11 Virginia churches in their battle to keep tens of millions of dollars in buildings and land after breaking away from the Episcopal Church. The decision is a first step in a multi-trial case and does not settle who gets the properties. But it is a boost to the breakaway churches and to a national movement that is battling the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, over what it believes to be an un-biblical liberal slant in the national church.
In the decision issued Thursday night, Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows ruled the breakaway churches' votes to leave in late 2006 and early 2007 constituted a legal "division" in the Virginia diocese under a Civil War-era statute. The diocese and the national church have said that the votes constituted a minority of diocese members and that the diocese, not congregants, owns the properties.
They also argue that the state law is unconstitutional because it lets the government tell a religious denomination how to govern its affairs. Bellows agreed to hear arguments in May on whether the state law is constitutional. The court, he wrote, "does not decide today any issue related to the constitutionality" of the law.
William Etherington, a lawyer specializing in church-state law who is not involved in the case, said he expects that it will be decided on grounds of constitutionality and that it could have an effect that extends beyond the Episcopal Church. "The constitutional issues cut across any denomination. It's something that's going to affect, certainly, any hierarchical church," he said yesterday.
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