Anglican Bishop Martyn Minns sure has the holiday spirit! Not.

Still bitter over the 2003 ordination of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson, Minns and his small-minded peers came together yesterday to split apart from the Episcopal Church, which represents the Anglican Communion here in the States.

Insisting they’ll be united by theology — rather than simply geography — Minns and other Bishops from Fort Worth, Pittsburgh and Quincy, IL, came together yesterday to unveil what they’re calling the "Anglican Church of North America," a group that includes breakaway churches from the Anglican Church of Canada.

Tensions have been simmering for years, and other dioceses in Africa and Asia have united in their opposition to the broader Anglican Communion’s "soft" stance on gay members and leaders. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola once went so far as to describe gays and lesbians as a "cancer" that needs to be removed from society. What a doll, right?

Though Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the most senior Anglican Leader, tried to bring both sides together, the conservatives seem intent on going their own way. In fact, Minns says he has so much support from African and Asian leaders, that Williams’s blessing would simply be symbolic: "It’s desirable that he get behind this. It’s something that would bring a little more coherence to the life of the Communion. But if he doesn’t, so be it." Williams most likely won’t be backing the group, especially considering that a spokesman for America’s Episcopal leader, Bishop Katherine Schori, described their position as "the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America." The official Episcopal group has many more members than this new breakaway: 2.3 million to 100,000.

Other observers also remain skeptical. Jim Naughton, who’s the canon of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, remarked that this new group "does not have much of a future because there are already a lot of churches in the United States for people who don’t want to worship with gays and lesbians." In other words, Minns and company are just a bunch of everyday bigots.