You probably remember Honor Moore's personal history essay in the March 3 New Yorker in which she revealed her father, formerly the Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of New York, had sex with men throughout his life. Her essay generated an unusual number of letters to the magazine and, rare for them, they dedicated the entire letters column to it and directed readers to even more letters online. Most prominent was a group letter by some of the nine Moore children who decried Honor's telling the truth about what they feel should be a private matter for eternity. That frightened me. If the straights succeed at preventing us from writing honestly about the dead, we are in grave trouble. That would be another big step toward erasing our history. Luckily, the Reverend Martha N. Macgill also wrote a letter, which seems to me much wiser:
The legacy of grief, anger, and suffering that sexual secrets cause in the institutional Church are legion and legendary. This story illustrates the necessity for our church to struggle honestly with the issue of healthy sexual behavior—gay or straight. The courage of the Right Reverend Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, and the reverberations from his consecration as a bishop in our church show that we people of God still have a good deal of work to do in this area. More important, secrets—particularly sexual secrets—in the life of an individual and his or her family are deeply harmful to wholeness and to health.
Read her whole letter here. Or read the siblings' complaint here. If the subject interests you, get the full story in Honor Moore's memoir, The Bishop's Daughter
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