EPISCOPAL CHURCH Gay reverend charges conspiracy

The two groups receiving help from wealtlhy donors are closely related.
WASHINGTON POST
The Rev. V. Gene Robinson, who is awaiting consecration as the Episcopal Church's first gay bishop, charged Thursday that the campaign against him is funded by a few major conservative donors with a broader political agenda.
The Rev. Mr. Robinson did not name the donors. But his supporters have provided reporters with tax filings and other documents showing that the two main organizations battling the Episcopal Church USA over Mr. Robinson's election are heavily financed by the Scaife and Ahmanson families, heirs to banking fortunes who have given to a range of conservative causes.
"Of course it worries me that a few extremely conservative individuals, for political reasons of their own, are trying to manipulate the people of the Episcopal Church," Mr. Robinson said in an interview.
"What I find so sad and alarming about that is that the people who are being manipulated, many of them, are faithful, wonderful, lifelong Episcopalians who are in genuine distress and grief and confusion and anger over my election and upcoming consecration -- and I really believe they are being taken advantage of by these conservative forces who have an entirely different agenda, and I think that's unconscionable," he said.
Two groups
The two organizations leading the charge against Robinson are the American Anglican Council (AAC), an umbrella group for "biblically orthodox" Episcopalians, and the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), a think tank that tries to counter what it sees as left-wing activism in mainline Protestant churches.
Both are nonprofits that share headquarters space in Washington, and they acknowledge receiving contributions from leading conservative philanthropists. But they deny that those donors dictate their policies, in general, or are responsible for their opposition to Robinson's consecration, in particular.
"They obviously care about some of the things that we do. They obviously care about the extraordinary influence of the radical religious left in our society and want to support our education work to counter that. But in terms of selecting issues that we might address or discussing the Episcopal Church, or any particular church -- they have not done that," IRD's president, Diane Knippers, said Thursday.
Grants
According to public tax filings, the IRD received $3.8 million in grants from conservative foundations from 1985 to 2002, including $1.7 million from the Sarah Scaife, Scaife Family and Carthage Foundations. All three are run by Pittsburgh millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who is also a major funder of the Heritage Foundation and bankrolled the American Spectator magazine's $2.4 million "Arkansas Project" to investigate Bill Clinton.
The AAC's tax filings do not disclose the names of its donors. But spokesman Bruce Mason said that it receives at least $200,000 annually from Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., much of it in matching grants to encourage other contributors. Ahmanson, who lives in Newport Beach, Calif., has also been among the largest donors to California Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock and to the Chalcedon Foundation, a California-based religious movement that calls for a Christian theocratic state enforcing biblical law.
To go forward
Mr. Robinson, 56, who is divorced and has lived openly with a man for 14 years, said he plans to go forward with his consecration in New Hampshire on Nov. 2 despite last week's warning by leaders of the Anglican Communion's member churches that "the future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy."
"I am feeling very resolved in my own mind and heart that God is asking me to move forward with this," he said.
Mr. Robinson said he had "no problem" with the statement by the primates of the 70-million-member Communion, including the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church USA.
"They said 'if' I'm consecrated, I would say 'when' I'm consecrated, the Anglican Communion will be in a state of crisis. I think that's true. But that doesn't say whether or not it's a good or a bad thing," he said.
"The church has dealt with many crises and, I would say, has grown from them many times."
Yet Mr. Robinson expressed bitterness about the involvement of donors who are not Episcopalians.
"There is no question in my mind that this would have been a controversial thing without them, but with their funding it gives that opposition a voice that is not commensurate with the numbers of people who are feeling this way," he said. Scaife and Ahmanson did not respond Thursday to requests for comment through their foundations. Knippers said she did not know Scaife's religious affiliation. Ahmanson is an Episcopalian whose former pastor in California was the Rev. David Anderson, president of the AAC.
In some years, Ahmanson's grants to the AAC have amounted to nearly a third of its total funding. Ahmanson's wife, Roberta, also sits on the IRD's board of directors. The Ahmanson family has donated $50,000 to $100,000 a year to IRD, which has a budget of about $1 million, according to Knippers.
Closely linked
Although they are incorporated separately, the council and the institute are closely linked. Knippers, in addition to running the day to day operations of the IRD, sits on the AAC's board.
"There has been lots of 'it's a vast right-wing conspiracy' stuff going about, alleging that we share finances and all that, which is not true. But it is true that we work closely together," Mason said.
"Somehow when conservatives get together it's a conspiracy, and when liberals get together, it's working for justice. It's a total double standard."