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Retired pastors offer to perform gay weddings Bill Fentum, Jul 15, 2008
IMAGE COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
By Bill Fentum Staff Writer
A group of retired United Methodist clergy in the California-Nevada Conference has volunteered to perform same-sex weddings and holy-union ceremonies to protect active ministers from being defrocked.
The 82 retirees made their offer in a resolution to the conference’s annual session June 18-21 in Sacramento, Calif. Delegates approved the action in a hand vote.
Bishop Beverly Shamana (San Francisco Area) agreed to rule on the resolution’s constitutionality within 30 days and submit her decision to the denomination’s Judicial Council.
The resolution cited the Supreme Court of California’s June 16 ruling that overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
“In light of [the court’s] decision,” the resolution said, “same-gender couples will be coming to our churches to have their weddings performed and blessed which is congruent with the pastoral role to which clergy are ordained.... Retired clergy in our Conference are now available to perform the marriages as an aid to the congregation and pastor.”
The California-Pacific Conference, meeting the same week in Redlands, Calif., also passed resolutions that support same-gender couples entering into marriage. The legislation “encourages both congregations and pastors to welcome, embrace and provide spiritual nurture and pastoral care for these families,” according to a June 27 statement from Bishop Mary Ann Swenson and other conference leaders.
The United Methodist Book of Discipline prohibits clergy from conducting homosexual unions. The 2008 General Conference affirmed on May 2 the church’s definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Patricia Miller, executive director of the Confessing Movement Within the United Methodist Church, criticized the resolution.
“I’m disappointed that these retired clergy have chosen to break with the ordination vows they took before God, and to break their covenant with the United Methodist Church and 2,000 years of Christian heritage,” Ms. Miller said in a phone interview.
In 1999, 68 clergy participated in a union ceremony for two women at St. Mark’s UMC in Sacramento. A complaint was dismissed in 2000 when an investigative committee affirmed that the California-Nevada Conference was “not of one mind regarding our church’s ministry to the gay/lesbian community.”
The Rev. Don Fado, retired pastor of St. Mark’s, led the 1999 ceremony and helped draft the new resolution.
“The church is speaking out of both sides of its mouth in the Discipline,” he said. “Besides the language in the Discipline against homosexuality, it also has plenty to say about inclusion, and the worth and value of every human being.”
IMAGE COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
