I suppose it was too much to ask that Bishop Jefferts Schori's election be uncontroversial. The Diocese of Fort Worth (Texas, United States) has appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for "immediate alternative Primatial oversight and Pastoral Care." A primate, in Anglican terminology, is the chief bishop or archbishop of a province, not an intelligent furry mammal. This diocese, and two others, does not ordain female priests, and is understandably upset at having a woman as a Presiding Bishop (equivalent to an archbishop). In the Church of England, individual churches that do not accept the authority of female priests can opt to be overseen by a bishop with similar views, known as a Privisional Episcopal Visitor (aka flying bishop). An episcopal church is a church governed by bishops. The Episcopal Church is the American version of the Anglican Church (although there may shortly be a split). There is also a Scottish Episcopal Church; they in fact consecrated the first American bishop, some time before the American Revolution.

I first went to a very evangelical Methodist church when I was growing up. I disagree now with much of their theology, but they did ordain women. I remember one female pastor at a church I went to every so often, Rev Nga Mee Hee (for my non-Asian readers, Nga is her surname and it's pronounced something like Nah, with the 'ah' as in draft). I found her to be all right, even though they taught us that wives had to be subordinate to their husbands and all that (I mostly never bought any of that, I'm glad to say).

One argument commonly used by the don't-ordain-women crowd is that if Jesus only chose men as his disciples. This is true. Furthermore, he only chose Jewish men. Are any of my Jewish male readers interested in becoming Christian priests? We've got ourselves a bit of a priest shortage. I'm sure you'd be paid quite handsomely.

Actually, the Scriptures were written by men (I've heard an argument that Song of Songs was written by a woman, but I'm not sure what the consensus is among scholars), and have generally been interpreted by men. It's quite conceivable, and even likely, that if Jesus did have female disciples (not among the Twelve), this fact was obscured by male writers who were uncomfortable having women in potential positions of power. Certainly, some of the letters attributed to Paul make reference to women in the ministry of the new Christian church in its early days.