Bishop Paul Moore, Episcopal Diocese of New York

Bishop Paul Moore, of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, was a champion of the poor. He marched with Martin Luther King, and was an early opponent of the war in Vietnam.

And his daughter, Honor Moore, revealed that he had affairs with me throughout his life. Indeed, some of his friends, acquaintances, and colleagues were unsurprised.

Honor Moore has a longer story in the New Yorker. She describes how he kept his sexual orientation a secret for his whole life. Paul Moore, because of the time he was born in, was deeply closeted. Honor, actually, is a lesbian, but did not know of her father's sexuality until after he died, and Andrew Verver, a lover of his contacted her.

The Living Church wonders if Paul's legacy must now be reevaluated, in the light of his posthumously coming out of the closet. Mark Sisk, current bishop of New York, apparently wrote his clergy a scathing letter. He accused Paul of violating his marriage vows. Indeed, he was the one who advised Andrew about converting from the Roman Catholic church to the Episcopal church, and formed a friendship with him, and then had an affair. In many contexts, that would be considered abuse.

On one hand, Mark misses the greater tragedy. Society, and the church, forced Paul to stay in the closet. To lie to his parishioners, his priests, and to himself. Paul Moore did not do the right thing. But then, people like Larry Craig and Ted Haggard show us that when LGBT people are forced into the closet, they sometimes do unhealthy things.

Do we reevaluate Paul's championship of the poor? David Virtue makes some additional, and admittedly incredible, assertions against Paul. David is an ultraconservative. It is incredibly difficult to take anything he says as having any sort of truth. If you could find my blog, you will be able to find David's writings if you are interested. But the point is, we shouldn't trust David ... should we trust Paul?

Does there come a time when we must assert that people, no matter what their society says, must take responsibility for their actions? We did not let Nazi war criminals go free. We did not let bigots in the Southern United States off during the Jim Crow era, when they persecuted African-Americans. We do not say that Peter Akinola is blameless for trying to incarcerate LGBT people, because his culture is homophobic. Paul Moore may very well have behaved abusively. Certainly, he was married when he had affairs with men. If he had not had safe sex, he would have exposed his wife to STIs.

What is certain is that God forgives. What is certain to me is that God is asking the Episcopal Church to come out of the closet. When we do, we can help make it such that no one needs to live in hiding, and to do dangerous things to compensate, ever again.