More Anglican Schism

First the roofs, and now this.

UPDATE: U.S. Episcopal Church Given Ultimatum

An article over at The Tablet:

"[A] statement from the 36 archbishops who lead the world's 70 million Anglicans gave the American Church until the end of September to stop blessing gay partnerships and to promise it would not consecrate more gay bishops.

...

Fears of a schism were temporarily abated, although the official group photograph of the archbishops had to be cancelled because the two camps, broadly divided into Western liberals and conservatives from the Global South, would not pose together.

Seven archbishops also refused to take Communion with the American Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, because of her unswerving support for Gene Robinson, a practising gay who was consecrated bishop in 2003.

Oh that's not childish!

This brings to mind a theory I have about the whole North/South thing. It seems that—at least in the U.S., China, Germany, and Italy—there is a persistent stereotype of the South as backwards, stupid, and/or undesirable in some way. Why is this? Are the same stereotypes applied to Northerners in Australia and other countries in the southern hemisphere? If so, there's something funny going on with the equator. But northern Italy is south of southern Germany, so it seems to be limited to a particular contiguous country (otherwise Hawaiians would be Neanderthal mental-midgets). If my theory as just stated is true, then people living exactly on the equator would be the most advanced human beings. Quito, Ecuador and Libreville, Gabon must be full of GENIUS's! (Isn't it also neat how "Ecuador" and "equator" both rhyme AND are only one letter different from one another?!)