Urgent alert: GC81 Nominating committee loses its mind, names Judge Michael Truncale as candidate for lay member of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops

The nominating committee for the 81st General Convention of the Episcopal Church has nominated Judge Michael Truncale, an active federal judge appointed by Donald Trump, as a law member candidate for the Disciplinary Board for Bishops.

Anglican Watch calls on all members of the Episcopal Church, including delegates to the General Convention, to object to this spectacularly inappropriate nomination. Further, we call on Truncale immediately to remove himself from consideration.

Specifically, Truncale’s nomination as a judge was opposed by various civil rights groups, including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which is a consortium of civil rights groups that includes the NAACP. The group stated:

Mr. Truncale is a partisan, conservative ideologue whose past statements show a hostility to immigrant rights, voting rights, reproductive freedom, workers’ rights, LGBT rights, campaign finance limits, environmental protection, common-sense gun control, and the role of the federal government. Mr. Truncale does not have the neutrality and objectivity necessary to serve in a lifetime position as a federal judge.

Additional concerns include:

• Calling President Obama an “un-American imposter.”
• Refusing to state that Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided during his confirmation hearing.
• Referring to immigrants as “bad influences” and “maggots.”
• Referring to LGBTQ+ persons in disparaging, hostile terms.
• Saying that Democrats use “race/gender card [to get] votes.
• Stating that Black Lives Matter supporters and protestors “incite police shootings.”
• Stating that a pro-choice politician “kills little girls.”

To be clear: We express no opinion on Truncale’s politics. Instead, we object to his harmful, hate-filled rhetoric, particularly when directed at underprivileged groups and persons.

Moreover, while we typically have scant patience with the Episcopal Church’s book studies and other transactional solutions to ending structural racism, it will be remarkably difficult, regardless of the tactics used, to build Beloved Community with Truncale responsible for ensuring the integrity of bishops in the church.

Additionally, the nomination is profoundly disrepectful to migrants, communities of color, those who believe in reproductive choice, and the LGBTQ+ community.

There is absolutely zero excuse for this outrageous, appalling, and unacceptable nomination.

The nominations committee owes a public apology to the extended church.