Bush judicial winner a member of reactionary church

Priscilla Owen, the first Bush appointee to benefit from the "deal" that prevented reactionaries from ending the filibuster in the Senate, teaches Sunday School at an Austin church:

To the nearly 300 congregants at St. Barnabas the Encourager Evangelical Covenant Church in Austin, she is admired as a "caring person" who teaches Sunday School classes for children from kindergarten-age to the fifth grade, says the Rev. Jeff Black. "She's the soul of graciousness," he said.

What the stories don't say is that the church left the Episcopal Church USA in 2004 [use fool/fool@hotmail.com/fool to log in] after the ECUSA sanctioned the election of a gay priest to the post of bishop of New Hampshire -- or, to quote the story, "because members believed Episcopal leadership had abandoned scriptural authority." So yes, Owen is, among other things, a homophobe.

By the way, I love how the newspaper reporter didn't put quotes around the phrase "scriptural authority." They've given up irony in Texas for a long time now.

Priscilla Owen, St. Barnabas the Encourager, St. Barnabas+Austin, homophobic Republicans