Following a tumultuous week that saw the Episcopal Church elect its first openly gay bishop and affirm that same-sex blessing ceremonies are acceptable, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C., believes the church and its members need to focus on the future.

“It’s time for us to move on,” said Rev. John Bryson Chane.

Chane — who voted to approve both items at the Episcopal General Convention in Minneapolis — downplayed the controversy.

“This convention above many others, that I’ve heard about anyway, was one that was truly grace-filled. There really wasn’t a lot of rancor in the discussions within the House of Bishops or the House of Deputies,” Chane said at Washington National Cathedral.

The difficulty, Chane said, lay in “recognizing that the vote that we would cast, however that would go, would have a significant impact, not only on the life of the Episcopal Church in the United States, but throughout the Communion.”

Chane believes the church now needs to focus its attention on pressing issues worldwide, such as the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

As for opponents still upset over what happened — and who may consider splitting from the church — Chane said he prays they will not stray.

“We need everybody at God’s table to do the mission of the church today,” he said.

An Athens woman who has accused a Gwinnett County, Georgia, sheriff’s deputy of rape told a newspaper that Derrick McGriff should be charged with a hate crime since he attacked her because she is lesbian.

The alleged victim, 21, said she met McGriff in a downtown Athens bar June 9, and that he forced her at gunpoint to drive to her apartment where he raped her.

The woman said McGriff vowed to “teach her a lesson” and said, “The world needed at least one less dyke and he was going to make sure that happened.”

The woman made the statements in a news article published June 27 in Southern Voice, a weekly gay and lesbian newspaper published in Atlanta.

The alleged victim is pressuring the district attorney’s office to seek a hate-crime indictment, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Since 2000, Georgia law allows a prosecutor to request and a judge to impose enhanced sentences of up to five additional years if it can be shown that a defendant intentionally selected a victim based on bias or prejudice.

Ken Mauldin, district attorney for Clarke and Oconee counties, said he could not discuss whether or not he planned to request enhanced penalties in this case.

McGriff, 25, was charged June 16 with one count of rape. He was placed on administrative leave by Gwinnett County officials pending an investigation, but later resigned.

The Rev. Gene Robinson returned to his home church Sunday, Aug. 10, to the hugs and handshakes of hundreds of parishioners and led the blessing there for the first time since becoming the first openly gay Episcopalian confirmed as a bishop.

Dressed in street clothes, he sat in a pew in the middle of the congregation for the morning service at St. Paul’s Church. He led the final blessing and afterward drank coffee and talked with parishioners in the church basement.

“New Hampshire has never looked so good,” said Robinson, whose election as bishop was confirmed Aug. 5 at an Episcopalian convention in Minneapolis.

The service was more crowded than usual Aug. 10.

“There was a lot more energy than usual, too,” said church member Robyn Cotton. A few families have left the church because of Robinson’s election, but the excitement has been a positive, she said.

“We’re trying to take Gene’s lead and be humble,” she said. “We feel as though God’s blessing is raining down on us.”

The American Anglican Council, which represents Episcopalian conservatives, said it will seek authorization to create a separate group in North America.

“Clearly I’ve been called to play a role here,” Robinson said. “But if anyone leaves the church it’s because they’ve chosen to, not because they’ve been asked to or forced to.

“I don’t hold the future of the Anglican church on my shoulders.”

A new report by New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that 42 percent of New Yorkers with multiple sexual partners said they did not use a condom the last time they had sex.

The report, “Sex in the City: More HIV Testing and Condom Use Needed!” found that among those with three or more partners in the last year, 58 percent said they used condoms during their most recent sexual encounter.

Younger people with three or more partners were more likely to say they used condoms. Seventy-three percent of those between ages 18 and 24 with three or more partners reported condom use, compared with just 40 percent of those aged 45 to 64.

The report also found that just 26 percent of New Yorkers between ages 18 and 64 said they had been tested for HIV in the last 18 months, while only 34 percent of those with three or more partners said they had been tested.

The report was based on data from the city’s 2002 Community Health Survey, a poll of 10,000 New Yorkers aged 18 and over.

A male escort who traded e-mails about gay encounters with murder suspect Michael Peterson testified Aug. 11 that Peterson emphasized their relationship was business only, and that they never actually had sex.

Brent Wolgamott, previously known only as a college student named “Brad,” testified that, in the space of about a month in 2001, he traded about 20 e-mails with Peterson and talked with him on the telephone.

They made plans to meet, but Wolgamott didn’t show up because he had been traveling and was tired, he testified. He wrote Peterson an e-mail almost a month later to explain, but got no response and the correspondence ended.

Peterson, a novelist, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kathleen, on Dec. 9, 2001. He faces a life sentence if convicted.

Prosecutors contend that Peterson beat his wife to death and are trying to show the Petersons didn’t have the storybook marriage the defense has portrayed. The defense has admitted Peterson is bisexual.

In one e-mail, Peterson explicitly said any encounter between the two men would be business only, Wolgamott testified.

“There would be no emotions involved,” he said. He estimated he and Peterson exchanged about 20 e-mail messages.

A state foundation in Rhode Island is collecting information from 371 GLBT Rhode Islanders for its first comprehensive survey examining issues facing the gay community.

“We know that Rhode Island in general has been changing and we would like to get a better sense of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities in Rhode Island,” said Rhode Island Foundation program officer Kris Hermanns.

The survey, still in progress, questions participants on topics ranging from why they live in Rhode Island to discrimination they may face because of their sexual orientation.

“A lot of people felt Rhode Island was much more welcome and embracing of diversity and people felt there was both strong cultural and legal resources,” Hermanns said.

Providence Mayor David Cicilline, who is gay, said the survey will show that Rhode Island doesn’t just tolerate people’s differences but celebrates them. Providence became the largest U.S. city to have an openly gay mayor when Cicilline was elected to the post last fall.

“It will ensure we continue to be a very understanding, very accepting and embracing community,” Cicilline said of the survey. The mayor was not surveyed.