Re-imagining Marriage

Re-imagining Marriage

The phone rang, and a staff member at my seminary in Washington, D.C., from which I had recently graduated, in May 1989, had a problem that he hoped I could help resolve: a couple he knew was planning to have their relationship blessed by their minister in the United Methodist Church where they were members—until the Bishop heard about it and declared that such blessing ceremonies were not to be conducted by United Methodist ministers or take place in United Methodist churches under the Bishop’s authority.

The Bishop’s problem was that the couple was gay.

The seminary staff person knew that I was one of many Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, thanks to my having trained at a More Light Presbyterian Church which publicly welcomed into membership and leadership all persons, whatever their gender or sexual orientation. I myself was not yet ordained, but did I know a Presbyterian minister who would be willing to step in and conduct this Holy Union in their Presbyterian church?

I referred them to my training supervisor, the Rev. Jeanne Mackenzie, minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Southwest D.C., and to the Rev. Carla Gorrell, a Presbyterian graduate of my seminary who worked in Westminster as Director of a program preparing and delivering meals to people with AIDS-related illnesses. As it turned out, Carla was able to conduct the ceremony, and Jeanne was more than happy for it to take place in Westminster—until the Presbytery heard about it and tried to ban such blessing ceremonies from being conducted by any of its ministers or taking place in any of its churches.

One debate led to another, until finally it was decided that Presbyterian ministers were free to bless same-gender relationships as long as they were not called “marriages.” This was a moot point in the days before civil jurisdictions in the United States started to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

This month the Presbyterian Church (USA) became the first denomination to “re-define” marriage. Its Book of Order now holds that marriage is “between two persons, traditionally a man and a woman.” And last summer the General Assembly of the PC(USA) decided that its ministers may conduct same-gender weddings wherever they are legal.

“Will you marry me?”—It’s no longer just a straight question.

“I do!”—It’s not simply a straight answer.

The human right to marry, whatever your gender or sexual orientation, is simply just.