Tag Archives: Marriage Equality

Focusing on Marriage Equality This Holy Week

  By Christian Paolino | March 23, 2013 - 4:08 pm | ,
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Integrity is partnering with Believe Out Loud and United for Marriage among many others in sponsoring a national effort called “Light the Way to Justice” to gain focus on marriage equality as the Supreme Court considers two cases which could dramatically affect policy and discourse in the days ahead.

Mary Button's LGBT Stations of the Cross
Mary Button’s LGBT Stations of the Cross

The Rev. Vicki Flippin, Pastor of the Church of the Village (UMC) tells the story of Edith and Thea, a lesbian couple of over 40 years who were married in Canada. A short time later, Thea died.  Edith was saddled with an inheritance tax bill of over $300,000, which she would not owe if their marriage was legally recognized. Her case will be heard by the Supreme Court this week, and the outcome could have a dramatic outcome for the Defense of Marriage Act.

The epicenter of this movement is, appropriately, in Washington DC.  On March 26th and 27th, a rally will take place on the steps of the Supreme Court building.  There will be opportunities to dialogue with elected officials, an interfaith prayer service on Tuesday morning and a seder on Tuesday night. More details are here.For those unable to travel, United for Marriage has an interactive map where you can find or plan your own event across the country. There are at least three events planned for our area:

Believe Out Loud has brought the artwork series Stations of the Cross: The Struggle for LGBT Equality by Mary Button to Washington, which will be on display at the Church of the Reformation (ELCA), 212 East Capitol St.Mary Button has given her permission for individuals or groups to use her work as a reflective or worship tool; please attribute her work if you use it.  A traditional or LGBT-perspective service of stations may be used.

Pastor Flippin, who will attend Tuesday’s event,  makes the case that this Holy Week, communities of faith should take a look at how we have contributed to the laws that affected Edith and Thea’s life so profoundly.  She writes, “I pray that we will follow in Christ’s footsteps to overturn what is wrong in our temples and work for the true and historic meaning of the Passover festival, which is LIBERATION!”

New York’s Bishops Sign Marriage Equality Brief to SCOTUS

  By Christian Paolino | March 6, 2013 - 10:24 pm |
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The bishops in five of New York’s six dioceses signed an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States which challenges the constitutionality of the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), a 1996 law mandates that the Federal government cannot recognize same-sex marriages.

The Right Rev. Andrew Dietsche, Bishop of New York, and the Right Rev. Lawrence Provenzano, Bishop of Long Island, signed the brief addressing the case of Windsor v. United states which is currently being heard by the Supreme Court. They were among 29 bishops in ten states plus Washington DC to sign the briefs, representing all but one of the 24 dioceses where civil marriage is legal.

“Integrity NYC Metro, our families, friends and allies, would like to thank Bishop Dietsche (New York) and Bishop Provenzano (Long Island) for joining with many other Episcopal Bishops in whose jurisdictions civil marriage equality is already a reality in signing an Amicus Curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States asking for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act,” said Paul Lane, Diocesan Organizer for New York.

The campaign was launched by the Right Rev. Marc Andrus, Bishop of the Diocese of California, which includes San Francisco.  Bishop Andrus explained his motives in a Washington Post column published February 28th.

“We overturned nearly two millennia of set tradition when we began ordaining women 34 years ago. We repudiated the traditional tolerance of slavery and racial prejudice in the mid-20th century. We traded our cultural privilege and hegemony as a largely Anglo denomination for the wealthy and have deliberately become more and more consciously a church for all,” Andrus wrote. “In all these things we have prayed and thought and been in earnest conversation in and out of the church, and believed that in the end we have discerned better the mind of Christ than we had in the past.”

The case refers specifically to an inheritance tax burden of over $360,000 owed by a New York woman after her wife died.  The couple of 40 years was legally married in Canada in 2007, but DOMA stipulates that the inheritance benefits of marriage do not apply to even those  same-sex marriages recognized by some states.

A second brief, signed by the bishops of all six dioceses in California, speaks specifically to the overturn of Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative which took away marriage equality in California after thousands of couples were legally married.  Dozens of groups, including one by the CEO’s over many of the country’s largest corporations, filed briefs in favor of marriage equality.

“Integrity is delighted that the Bishops have signed on to these two amici briefs. Last year General Convention passed resolution D018 urging members of Congress to repeal federal laws that discriminate against civilly married same-gender couples. Signing the amicus brief in Windsor v. United States is a logical step as it supports the repeal of the discriminatory so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” said the Rev. Dr. Carolyn Hall, Integrity’s President.  “However it is a step that might not have been taken had it not been for the courage of the bishops involved and the leadership of the Diocese of California. Once again, The Episcopal Church joins with the leaders in this important witness and commitment to social justice.”

After same-sex marriages were legalized in New York in 2011, the bishops of New York and Long Island gave their clergy permission to witness the marriages, just as they do for heterosexual couples.  The Diocese of New York encompasses Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and several downstate counties.  The Diocese of Long Island includes Brooklyn Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Meeting Baby ACE: Couple Recalls Finding Future Son in Subway

  By Christian Paolino | March 3, 2013 - 1:19 pm |
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The New York Times published on February 28th the story of how playwright Peter Mecurio and his now-husband Danny, a social worker, came to be the parents of an infant Danny found abandoned in a subway station twelve years ago.

Called “Baby ACE” after the blue-line trains that call at the station, the infant became the responsibility of the court, but at a hearing about the event, the judge unexpectedly asked Danny if he would consider adopting him.  Although it was not something the couple had ever considered, Danny surprised himself and his partner by saying, “Yes!”

Fast-forward to 2011 when New York State legalized same-sex marriage.  When Danny and Peter were making plans to tie the knot, their son, now a ten-year-old they named Kevin, suggested they reach out to the same judge who had brought their family together.  She gladly witnessed the ceremony and met the boy whose life she had changed with that seemingly impulsive offer years before.

Peter recalls the story in this heartwarming opinion piece, and also wrote a screenplay entitled Found: A True Story.

Presiding Bishop’s Task Force on Marriage Announced

  By Christian Paolino | February 16, 2013 - 12:31 pm | ,
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The Dancing Men

Bronze sculpture of two men dancing seemed strangely appropriate under our church banner following the House of Bishop’s vote to approve the liturgy for blessing same-sex relationships

As approved by Resolution A-50 at the 2012 General Convention of the Episcopal Church in July, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; and the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies, have announced the formation of a twelve-person task force for a comprehensive study of the institution of marriage.

Among the members of the task force are the Rev. Canon Susan Russell, former President of IntegrityUSA, and the Rev. Dr. Cameron E. Partridge, Chaplain at Boston University and one of the transgender clergy featured in our film Voices of Witness: Out of the Box.  Our area is well-represented by the Rev. Tobias Haller BSG, who is a poet, iconographer, and author of the book Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same Sexuality in addition to his call as Vicar of St. James’: Fordham in the Bronx borough of New York City.

For more details on the Task Force, read the story on the Episcopal Church website.

At his Installation, Bishop Dietsche References Stonewall, Marriage Equality

  By Christian Paolino | February 9, 2013 - 3:17 pm | ,
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Bishop Andrew Dietsche at NYC Pride 2012

Bishop Andrew Dietsche at NYC Pride 2012

On Saturday, February 2nd (the Feast of the Presentation), the Diocese of New York installed the Right Rev. Andrew M. L. Dietsche as its new diocesan bishop, succeeding the Right Rev. Mark Sisk , at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. 

In his sermon, Bishop Dietsche referenced both the 30th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the recent achievement of marriage equality in New York.  This past year, while Bishop Coadjutor, he rode the Episcopal Church’s float at the Pride March.  Earlier this year, he and Bishop Dietsche wrote pastoral letters authorizing clergy to officiate in civil marriages for same-sex couples, as these are permitted by New York state law.

Beautiful photographs of Bishop Dietsche’s installation service are available here.

 

NJ Unitarian Congregation Signs Up for Marriage Equality

  By Christian Paolino | December 5, 2012 - 12:24 am |
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The Unitarian Church in Summit, N.J., has invited the public to be present this coming Sunday when it unveils a banner, designed by congregants, declaring official endorsement of civil marriage equality in the state.

At the church’s annual meeting in June, members voted to take a visible stand in the issue, which has been the topic of public debate in the state for almost ten years.  In 2006, New Jersey legalized civil unions, and a marriage equality bill passed both houses of the state legislature in February, but was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, who believes the matter should be decided by a public referendum.  Same-sex marriages are now legal in nine states and Washington DC, and civil unions or other recognitions exist in several others, but none is recognized by the Federal government.

“Marriage is a civil right,” said the Rev. Vanessa Southern, the church’s Senior Minister. “Citizens who pay taxes and are married in the eyes of their ministers and rabbis are being denied more than 1,100 rights simply because the law says they are of the wrong sex.  Our national standard of justice demands better.”

Unitarian ministers, like Episcopal priests and other religious leaders, may perform services to bless couples who have a civil union. The Unitarian Universalist Church, among 14 other denominations, is an institutional partner with the Episcopal Church in Believe Out Loud, an ecumenical movement to identify, support and promote congregations who seek to be more welcoming of LGBT people, including educational materials about marriage equality as a justice issue.

Has your congregation taken a stand on marriage equality? Are blessing services performed at your church? How is this communicated?

The Episcopal Church has been on an evolutionary track towards marriage equality.  A study in the 1980s revealed that commitment rites of various kinds for same-sex couples had already taken place in nearly all the church’s over 100 dioceses. In 2003, the churchwide General Convention acknowledged that the church in some areas was responding to a call for such blessings. In 2009 it authorized a “generous pastoral response” to the fact that civil marriages and civil unions were occurring among the church’s LGBT members and commissioned a trial rite for blessing such unions, which was approved by the 2012 Convention for use beginning this past Sunday.  The new Bishop of Western Massachusetts, The Rt. Rev. Douglas John Fisher, was consecrated on Saturday and performed his first blessing of a civil marriage on Sunday, one of three in the diocese that day.

 Event Snapshot:

  • WHAT: Unveiling of marriage equality banner, with personal testimony from clergy and laity
  • WHEN: Sunday, December 9th at 12:30 p.m.
  • WHERE: Unitarian Church in Summit, 4 Waldron Avenue  Summit, NJ 07901

Gene Robinson’s Marriage Equality Book Debuts at St. John the Divine

  By Christian Paolino | October 11, 2012 - 5:52 pm |
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On September 17th, the Right Rev. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, addressed a crowd of about 100 at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City on the subject of a Christian case for marriage equality.  The event, hosted and moderated by the Very Rev. Dr. James Kowalski, Dean of the Cathedral, was also a “soft launch” for Bishop Robinson’s new book God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage, which is now available.

Bishop Robinson first addressed the audience, then entertained questions from Dean Kowalski before the floor was opened to general Q&A.  One of the Dean’s questions was about Robinson’s own first marriage, to the mother of his children.  Robinson shared that he had told his wife about his feelings for men before they married, and — after they both realized years later that this was not something they could overcome — they mutually agreed to end the marriage and created a sacramental rite to release one another from their vows. Despite charges during his election that he abandoned his family, in fact he and his former wife are still good friends and one of his daughters was present in the room!  She attended his consecration as Bishop and both his daughters were there when he married his husband, Mark.

“I was surprised at the diversity of the audience.  People came from all generations, from college students to retirees, to listen to Bishop Robinson speak on marriage equality,” remarked Michael Petti, an attendee from the Diocese of Newark.  “Questions ranged from ‘How do I work to raise these issues on my college campus?’ to ‘I belong to a Roman Catholic Church and there are times I feel I can change the institution from the inside, so I stay, and other times I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle.  What do you think I should do?’   Bishop Robinson, in his uniquely pastoral way, responded with truth, reason and without judging other denominations while at the same time offering the questioners sound alternatives for their own faith journey.”

After Archbishop’s Controversial Statement, an Opportunity for Evangelism

  By Christian Paolino | October 2, 2012 - 6:37 pm |
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On September 25th, Archbishop John Myers of Newark issued a pastoral letter to northern New Jersey’s one million Roman Catholics urging them to vote “in defense of marriage and life,” which — in the opinion of the Newark Star Ledger‘s editorial board — amounts to an implicit endorsement of a specific presidential candidate just weeks before the election.  Myers cites a desire to see “flourishing families” as his motive for the directive, the timing of which he insists is coincidental.

Archbishop Myers went on to state that Catholics who disagree with the church’s stance on marriage should refrain from taking communion.  Tom Moran, who sits on the aforementioned editorial board, wrote a personal piece on Sunday in which he describes himself as a “spiritual refugee.”  He talked about the church of his childhood whose focus was on helping the poor and disenfranchised, and worries that the current leadership’s fixation on gay marriage will be its undoing, since the majority of American Catholics (53 percent overall, 72 percent of young adults) support marriage equality, according to a Pew Research poll last updated in July.

Our own bishop of Newark, the Right Rev. Mark Beckwith, stated in his own guest column that he shares Archbishop Myers’ respect for scriptural tradition and appreciation of strong and healthy families, but that in his experience these can come with parents of all gender combinations.  Bishop Beckwith echoed Mr. Moran’s concern that those families who are truly at risk — those shouldering the burden of unemployment, poverty, underfunding and neglect — will be forgotten as those in power argue about semantics.

Rather than remain refugees when the churches of our birth came to seem unwelcoming, either because of who we are or what we believe, some 250,000 people have found a home in the Episcopal Church in the past ten years according to Episcopal Cafe editor Jim Naughton, who also weighed in on Archbishop Myers’ letter.  Mr. Naughton wonders why we have not done more to reach out to those who have are still either seeking a new faith community or believe that one that welcomes them does not exist.

Integrity and its partners in the Believe Out Loud program believe all of us have the privilege and calling to welcome our brothers and sisters to share the good news with us.  Rather than criticize other denominations or harp on statements with which we disagree, we believe the strongest witness we can make is our own individual story and the gifts our church has to offer.  At our upcoming workshop, we will teach you how to seek common values to gracefully engage those who struggle with the idea of a church where LGBT people are welcome.  We can point you to resources that help you understand how we reconcile our beliefs with scripture and tradition.

A very effective use of first-person narrative can be found on the website of St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Seaford, N.Y., in the Diocese of Long Island (which includes Brooklyn and Queens).  This congregation has people from different backgrounds tell how they came to be members.  Something like this, perhaps featuring a different parishioner each month, is a great way of helping potential visitors see the rich diversity that makes up our church, and lets them know that — whomever they are and wherever they are on their own journey — the Episcopal Church is a place where they will be welcomed and celebrated.

Diocese of New York Bishops to Permit Clergy to Witness Same-Sex Marriages from 9/1

  By Christian Paolino | July 20, 2012 - 12:04 pm | ,
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In response to the House of Bishops’ debate over Resolution A049 (authorizing a churchwide rite for same-sex blessings), the Right Rev. Mark Sisk, Bishop of New York, in concurrence with his assisting bishops, announced on July 19th that — from September 1st — clergy in the Diocese of New York who feel called to witness the marriages of same-sex couples have episcopal permission to do so.  A statement from the Right Rev. Andrew Dietsche (Bishop Sisk’s elected successor) stating his concurrence with the decision, follows Bishop Sisk’s announcement.

The Diocese of New York includes the boroughs of Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx in addition to several downstate counties.  The Diocese of Long Island, which includes Brooklyn and Queens, gave permission for clergy to witness civil marriages shortly after the New York state law was passed last summer.  Yesterday’s announcement means that five of the six dioceses in New York practice marriage equality.

Episcopal Church Authorizes Same-Sex Blessings

  By Christian Paolino | July 10, 2012 - 8:00 pm | ,
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IntegrityUSA has released the following statement:
INDIANAPOLIS, IN — The Episcopal Church at its 77th General Convention, meeting in Indianapolis, decided today, by a large majority, to authorize a service for same-sex couples. Starting on December 2, 2012, Episcopal clergy, with the agreement of their bishop, will be able to bless same-sex unions using the  provisional liturgy authorized today by the Convention, the Church’s governing body.
Integrity USA has been working for thirty five years towards the full inclusion of LGBT persons in the Church. Same-gender unions have been blessed in Episcopal churches all over the country for decades, but this is the first time a church-wide public service has been agreed. It is a milestone in the journey toward achieving full inclusion, and being able to truly declare that “all means all” in the worship life of the denomination. It will enable Integrity to reach out to LGBT persons who have been rejected by the churches they were raised in, as well as those who were raised without any connection to Christianity.
The new blessing liturgy is not a marriage service. It does not use the language of marriage, but emphasizes the lifelong, monogamous, committed nature of the relationship being blessed. Integrity will continue to work for full marriage equality in The Episcopal Church.  The president of Integrity, The Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall, said “This is a hugely important moment in the history of this church. The Episcopal Church does not have statement of belief other than the ancient creeds. We say that if you want to know what we believe, you can look at the words of our worship. So a liturgy for blessing same-sex relationships brings gay and lesbian couples fully into the life of the Church and proclaims that the Episcopal Church considers that their lives can be holy and blessed by God.”
This permission for same-sex blessings follows the addition of “gender identity and expression” to the non-discrimination laws of The Episcopal Church yesterday. This change makes it unlawful for transgender persons to be excluded from leadership positions, either lay or ordained, based solely on their status as transgender.
For further information, please contact Louise Emerson Brooks, at communication@integrityusa.org.