A Wokish Comedy

Writing in The Spectator, Grayson Quay describes a series of events that is too improbable for the most wildly satiric fiction. The setting is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (to which, in the interests of full disclosure, I acknowledge that many of my best relatives adhere; one is a member of the ELCA clergy). As summarized by a non-ELCA Lutheran pastor –

Neurodivergent nonbinary trans pastor is made bishop. This individual then disciplines abusive latinxpastor. But this is unknowingly done on a Hispanic holiday and is thus racist. Woman archbishop rebukes bishop but isn’t harsh enough so is then also racist.

The sequence of events was thus:

1. A Lutheran bishop who claims to be neither male nor female, but who used to have male anatomy and now goes by a traditionally feminine name, dismissed a pastor whom she/he/it had determined was verbally abusive.
2. The fired pastor is a “cisgender male” (meaning that he was born male, doesn’t pretend to be of any other sex and isn’t homosexual). He is also of Afro-Caribbean descent. He objected to being sacked.
3. “Who has the higher intersectionality score?” was the key question. The answer hung in the balance, until the pastor “pulled an Uno Reverse. It turns out that Rohrer [the bishop] had announced his firing on the day of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.” (As Mr. Quay points out, “Lutherans don’t celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. That’s a Catholic thing. The Marian apparitions the feast commemorates happened eleven years after the pope excommunicated Martin Luther.”)
4. The Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA promptly came to the pastor’s defense, declaring that dismissing him on the feast day of the patron saint of Mexico was racist.
5. The bishop, seeing that she had come out behind in the intersectional game, abjectly apologized. “Rohrer said they was very sorry as well as ‘grateful to all who have educated me about the needs of the Latino/x/é [author’s [Quay’s] note: WHAT?!] community and remain committed to doing the work needed to repair relationships.’”
6. Then came the denouement, as related by Mr. Quay:

In response to the Asociación’s complaints, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the first woman to lead the ELCA, said Rohrer’s actions were “unwise” but were not deserving of official church discipline. Well, that was racist too. The Asociación called Eaton’s failure to have the denomination’s first trans non-binary bishop hanged, drawn, and quartered a “culturally insensitive dereliction of duty.” Eaton, a white, straight, cis-gender woman, was intersectionally outgunned. She quickly reversed course and asked Rohrer to resign, which they did.

Keeping to the order of precedence at the Court of Versailles was never so challenging.

Comments

[Kevin Standlee]

"Cisgender" does not automatically mean "heterosexual." Gender identity and sexual orientation are different things.

Non-binary people may use "they" as their personal pronoun, as show in the statement in point 6. It is very rare for someone to use "it" as their personal pronoun, and presuming so as you appear to have done is generally considered offensive.