The elite victim class is circling its wagons around Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire, who lives in a partnered homosexual relationship. It was announced yesterday that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, did not include Robinson in the first batch of invitations to the Lambeth Conference scheduled for the summer of 2008.

Choking, sputtering rage can be heard around The Episcopal Church as gay activists and their supporters outdo one another in their displays of righteous indignation. The Rev. Susan Russell, President of Integrity, the official homosexual lobby of The Episcopal Church, was "outraged and appalled" at the news and made a not so subtle threat at impending retaliation.

"Integrity is currently contacting the leadership of the Episcopal Church and consulting with our progressive allies about this situation. We expect to make an additional statement in the near future", said Russell.

The Bishop of California cites clinical reports by elite practitioners to document the dark inner meaning of this moment, lest the uninitiated mistake Robinson's disinvitation as a mere act of political pragmatism by a beleaguered Archbishop, calling it "isolation and exile" and a "mechanism of the diabolic".

Methinks the bishop doth protest too much. His language is too sickeningly sweet to convey premonitions of darkness, the selection of words too calculated and too politically correct to describe any political reality. This is a man who lives a sheltered life, who has the leisure to select causes upon which to vent his outrage the way people make selections from an L.L. Bean catalogue. He can choose to be offended in whatever way most flatters his vanity.

Oppression sure ain't what it used to be.

His attempts at portraying paranoia are unconvincing. "The tactic of exile and isolation has been among strongest tools of oppression against the human spirit," he writes, as if describing a hi-tech method of Chinese water torture. Again, Williams' decision cannot be seen as an expediency, however ill-advised, but must be taken as a "tactic" and a "tool". This might have some credence if Robinson were the only one "isolated" by the Archbishop. Martyn Minns and the whole troop of AMiA bishops were similarly disinvited and "isolated", but they are not worthy of mention. Presumably they are "communion busters" by definition, created for the sole purpose of waging war on TEC's home turf. Furthermore, they have no credentials to certify their "oppression", since they do not represent an officially certified minority. Robinson, by virtue of his "isolation", begins to appear as the one who has all the aces, even if he appears at present to be excluded from the game. As Ms. Russell hinted, that will soon change.

What sort of moment is this that the Bishop of California is alluding to? It is anything but a dark moment for the oppressed. The hint that Gene Robinson is subject to "scapegoating" gives us a hint of what this all means. Calling Robinson a "scapegoat" is tantamount to proclaiming him a martyr. In our era of symbolic gestures as prophetic moments, Robinson can get away with bleeding symbolically. This becomes another card for him to play another day.

Martyrdom ain't what it used to be either.

Finally the Bishop of California discloses "a larger horizon of meaning" in the exclusion of Robinson from Lambeth: it is an attack upon the unity of the Church. A month before his consecration the Primates (including the American Primate) agreed that to proceed with the consecration of Gene Robinson would "tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level" -- in other words, it would shatter the unity of the Church. These words have proven true at every turn. Only now do we find that Robinson is the incarnation of Communion, and snubbing him is "shattering communion and integrity." This is what we see when we, like Bishop Andrus, look at this incident with "spiritual vision".

Mark Andrus, and the conspicuously outraged elites in TEC, obviously know that no one apart from their own circle is listening. There might be a few sympathetic bystanders, not familiar with the antics of the Church over the years, who will see this as an authentic replica of the great American protest years. Mostly it is a signal to fellow revisionists that the game is afoot. Those who whine, let them whine. Those who play political wild cards, get ready to play. No lie will be too outrageous. People have been trained by now not to listen for truth or falsehood, but to protect themselves against possible liabilities in the future.

This is a proving ground for the righteously indignant to upgrade their credentials, to put away moral capital for a rainy day. We can agree this much with Bishop Andrus: a hard rain is coming. But not today.

---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline.