. . . oops.

Exactly how this will play out in church situations is unclear, judging from a press conference Wednesday in Minneapolis. There, Wendy Griffith, a reporter with the Christian Broadcasting Network, asked presiding Episcopal Bishop Frank Griswold about Bishop-elect V. Gene Robinson, who was confirmed Tuesday as the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop. He is divorced and lives with his male partner.     

If, the reporter asked, a divorced male bishop could live with a man to whom he was not married, what about a divorced heterosexual male bishop living with a female lover?     

"Or," she added, "is being outside marriage only OK if you are gay?"     

"The Episcopal Church honors holy matrimony," Bishop Griswold said, "and certainly if a male were elected bishop and was living with a woman without benefit of clergy, that would be a significant problem."     

"So there's a double standard, then?" Miss Griffith asked, at which point church spokesman Jim Solheim abruptly ended the press conference.

Washington Post August 8, 2003.