The following article appears in the March-April issue of Forward in Christ, and is reproduced with permission.
A strong extrovert, Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson has said that he is happy when at the center of attention. It should come as no surprise then that the New Hampshire cleric was all smiles in early January, when he presided over his diocese’s first same-sex wedding with cameras in tow.
Robinson called it “a holy day” for those who believe in the sacrament of marriage. “It is, oh, so holy,” the cleric pronounced, draped in an embroidered blue and white robe with a green vine motif and capped by a matching mitre.
While Robinson has previously drawn attention as the Anglican Communion’s first openly homosexual bishop, his blessing of one of the first gay marriages in New Hampshire exacerbates a crisis in the 80 million-member communion: not just of homosexual bishops, but the widening practice of same-sex blessings and marriages.
While only the most liberal of dioceses are seriously entertaining the idea of nominating homosexual leaders, let alone elect them, a survey of diocesan policies in November by Anglican writer David Virtue revealed that about half of U.S. dioceses either permit or plan to permit their parishes to perform the blessings of same-sex unions.
That means a gay wedding is quite possibly coming to an Episcopal church near you.
Both same-sex weddings and new homosexual bishops are supposed to be subject to moratoria requested by Anglican Communion leaders. The tipping point occurred after a resolution passed at the Episcopal Church’s 2009 General Assembly calling for a “generous pastoral response” towards same-sex couples. The resolution quickly led to diocesan-approved same-sex blessings and even marriages. C056, “Liturgies for Blessings” called for the church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to “collect and develop theological and liturgical resources” for the blessing of same gender relationships.
“… bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church,” the resolution reads.
Some revisionist dioceses have conducted unofficial same-sex blessing ceremonies for years. However, bishops in these dioceses did not alter official diocesan policy. That changed in 2008, when the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, Jon Bruno, authorized the use of a rite for the “Sacramental Blessing of a Life-long Covenant” which included same-gender couples.
“While the state will not allow us to officially marry same-sex couples, we believe the same blessing ceremony afforded to men and women should be afforded to same-sex couples,” the Los Angeles policy said.
A similar policy announced in November by Paul Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania), also provided for church blessings of same-sex couples.
In a letter to clergy, Marshall wrote that General Convention “empowered bishops to make ‘Generous Provision’ regarding pastoral and liturgical ministry to same-sex couples.”
According to The Living Church magazine, Bishop Marshall said that such blessings should occur in church and that the Holy Eucharist should be celebrated “when that’s appropriate.” Other requirements are similar to those for couples preparing for marriage: One person must be a baptized Christian and the couple should receive counseling.
However, the bishop cautioned his priests not to confuse blessings and marriage rites.
“People whose unions are blessed need to understand that in Pennsylvania they are not married, and that your holding yourself out as doing a ‘marriage’ without a license to perform it is a legal offense,” Bishop Marshall wrote. “So, all questions of theology aside, it is best to avoid the word in this commonwealth and at this time.”
Marshall instructed clergy to use the Book of Common Prayer’s blessing of a civil marriage, with the language “adjusted as necessary.”
Possibly the most significant change has been in Massachusetts, where Bishop M. Thomas Shaw announced in November that clergy may preside over same-sex marriage ceremonies, even before Robinson could act in New Hampshire. Unlike dioceses where only “blessing” ceremonies have been permitted, in Massachusetts the presiding priest can use the word “marriage.” The Episcopal dioceses of Iowa and Vermont have joined Massachusetts and New Hampshire in allowing their clergy to officiate at such rites.
According to the Boston Globe, Shaw, a longtime supporter of gay rights and same-sex marriage, had previously cited the Episcopal Church’s canons and prayer book in barring local priests from officiating at same-sex marriages, even after such unions became legal in Massachusetts in 2004.
The announcement was preceded in September by the marriage of a lesbian couple at the historic St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of the women, Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, said in the Daily Dispatch that the ceremony may have been the “very first” mainstream African-American church “to hold a same-gender wedding, and that’s something that just wouldn’t have happened years ago.”
As for the union that Robinson presided over in January, it took place in Berlin, a town of 10,000 by the White Mountain National Forest. St. Barnabas, situated on Main Street and built of gray stone wrapped in ivy and fronted by a large red door, is every bit the image of a New England Episcopal Church. Joined that day were Elizabeth Hess and the Rev. Eleanor McLaughlin, the latter a former rector of St. Barnabas.
The crowd of family, friends and well-wishers in attendance were described in the Berlin Reporter as being “of well over 100 people”. Diocesan records indicate that weekly attendance at the parish is smaller, dropping from about 40 down to 25 people during McLaughlin’s leadership.
McLaughlin’s successor, also a lesbian, has fared little better. Fran Gardner came from the tiny Diocese of Northern Michigan, famous for electing an ordained Zen Buddhist as bishop, a move vetoed by the rest of the church.
While St. Barnabas is struggling, other area churches seem to have escaped its fate. Two minutes away, an evangelical church (planted at about the same time McLaughlin began her ministry in Berlin) has six times the Sunday attendance and shows all the signs of thriving.
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