Episcopalians Reject Gay Candidates

Schism Is Averted As Church Elects Alabamian Bishop

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 7, 2006; Page A12

SAN FRANCISCO, May 6 -- The story from the Grace Cathedral on Saturday was not so much about what happened but what didn't happen. Episcopalians in San Francisco did not elect an openly gay candidate as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, thereby preventing a schism within the 75 million-member Anglican Communion already on the verge of crisis after the election of its first gay bishop in New Hampshire three years ago.

Instead, about 700 voters representing clergy and laity chose Mark Handley Andrus, a violin-playing, yoga-practicing father of two, currently the bishop suffragan from the diocese of Alabama. Andrus, who will be succeeding Bishop William E. Swing, who is retiring, told the voters in a phone link from his home that he is "glad and humbled by the trust you have placed in me."

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