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Wednesday, Apr. 30, 2008

Presbyterian high court rules against censure

CLERIC PERFORMED SAME-SEX MARRIAGES

The highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) ordered that one of its ministers who performed same-sex marriages should not be censured by the church.

The order by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission overturns the ruling of a lower court that found the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr in violation of the constitution of the church by officiating at weddings for lesbian couples in New York in 2004 and California in 2005.

The order issued Tuesday said, "The ceremonies that are the subject of this case were not marriages as the term is defined (by the Book of Order). These were ceremonies between women, not between a man and a woman. ... It is not improper for ministers of the Word and Sacrament to perform same sex ceremonies."

The church's Book of Order says, "Marriage is a civil contract between a man and a woman," and does not prohibit blessings of same-sex couples that are not determined to be marriages.

The high court said in the ruling that the lower court had erred by finding Spahr guilty "of that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes."

That distinction left Spahr feeling that her victory was incomplete Tuesday.

"My concern is that they said I do not do marriages," Spahr said in an interview from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon, Calif. "I did do marriages.

"What I care about is that you have a happy, healthy relationship. But again to hear that we are separate and unequal is so painful to me," she said. "Couples are couples. It was a split decision, a mixed decision."

Spahr said she is currently meeting with six couples, three of the same gender, to counsel them on their plans to unite. She requires that any couple for whom she performs a wedding meet with her monthly for at least a year.

Asked whether she plans now to distinguish more clearly between a marriage ceremony and a same-sex commitment ceremony, as the high court's ruling urges her to do, she said, "It would really go against my faith. I want so much for the church to be a place of welcome and hospitality."

The case against Spahr was first heard by California-based Presbytery of the Redwoods, which found that Spahr had not violated church law. The Synod of the Pacific, a regional group of presbyteries that includes Redwoods, ruled that the presbytery had erred and that the presbytery must censure Spahr. But before the presbytery could reconsider her case, Spahr appealed to the church's highest disciplining body, which heard the case in Louisville Friday.

Spahr said Tuesday after the ruling, "I was grateful that the (General Assembly) permanent judicial commission went with the decision of the presbytery that reaffirms my ministry."