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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, see the progressive school thread. They are listed there. They must be very avant- garde to be recognized as progressive on DCUM. Their school store sells rainbow sox and sports banners for pride week.  Ok that was tongue in cheek.

But we do know they are Episcopalian, which is queer friendly. Although around fifteen years ago, eight NOVA episcopal churches broke away and joined a Nigerian Anglican diocese after the episcopal church allowed ordination of gay priests and female bishops. The Nigerian church was then headed by a guy who called for prison terms for homosexual activity. Meanwhile corruption in Nigeria has robbed the country of $400billion in oil revenue. The break away conservative episcopal churches in Virginia and Illinois formed the Anglican Church Of North America in 2009 and it is a separate part of the Anglican Communion than is the Episcopal Church.

Then six years ago, The Episcopal Church included the rite for same sex marriages in its church laws. The Anglican Church world wide communion responded by suspending and slapping sanctions on its US Branch for supporting same sex marriage. The conservative Anglicans in Africa and NOVA were ecstatic. Nearly half the countries where homosexuality is a crime are in Africa (it is a crime in 22 African countries and illegal in 38 African countries). Only one African country has legalized same sex marriage (South Africa). In four African countries including northern Nigerian, individuals found guilty of Homosexuality face the death penalty.

Anyhoo, the Episcopal Church was suspended for three years over gay marriage issue. Two years later, then Prince Harry and Meghan Markle broke with royal custom by inviting the first African American Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry to deliver an address at their wedding. This was pointed support for gay rights since royal custom was to have senior clergy from Church of England to deliver addresses at royal weddings.

The Episcopal Anglican rift over same sex unions is quite poetic really. In 1534, King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to form The Anglican Church in order to allow the annulment of marriages to wives who bored him or did not bear him sons. The World Wide Anglican Communion is going strong in 46 countries thanks to the British Empire. Now nearly 600 years later, the Episcopal Church is close to breaking away over a new type of marriage arrangement for the ten percent of us who are gay or bisexual.

The Episcopal Church has waged battle to defend gay rights.

St Albans probably stays above the fray but they are officially Episcopalian. [/quote]

Fascinating, but has zero to do with day to day life at STA[/quote]

Ya maybe not day to day but on some level it has to influence the school culture … StAs is one of just three Episcopal Schools who formally graduate from high school in an Episcopal ceremony at the National Cathedral. They have regular chapel services in the cathedral.

Some Episcopal priests and bishops are gay and the church has taken serious hits to honor their right to be part of the faith community as members and leaders.

Hopefully trickle down sociology is more consequential than trickle down economic theory 😀[/quote]

It's a little more than trickle down. The boys take religion classes, they have chapels, they have chaplains. All of these things are run by Episcopal leaders, and all are grounded in Episcopal principles. Boys are not required to become Episcopalians, or even Christians, but they are provided with a path that requires them to be thoughtful about the role (or not) of religion in their lives, and the relevant religious teachings here are Episcopal, and more specifically, the Episcopal teachings that are closely connected with the National Cathedral. This context matters. There are other religious schools, and while those schools also don't typically require a student to convert to, say, Catholicism, the context of the religious teachings and supports will be different on issues like gay marriage and reproductive rights (especially for more Opus Dei adjacent Catholic schools, and to some degree with non-Jesuit Catholic schools, and to a fairly small degree with Jesuit schools).

Of course, no amount of teaching, religious or otherwise, can guarantee that the students will not speak or act in discriminatory or even hateful ways. And it is up to the school to articulate clear policies on acceptable speech and discourse, which STA has recently done (we'll have to see how the policy on respectful discourse it issued actually plays out on the ground, of course). But everything, including the Episcopal context of which STA is an integral part, adds up and matters. [/quote]

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