The United Church of Christ endorsed marriage equality at the denomination’s General Synod, meeting in Atlanta on July 4th. It is the first major Christian denomination to do so.
“Roughly 80 percent of the representatives on the church’s 884-member General Synod voted to approve the resolution Monday,” reports The Associated Press. “The resolution calls on member churches of the liberal denomination of 1.3 million to consider wedding policies ‘that do not discriminate against couples based on gender.’ It also asks churches to consider supporting legislation granting equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples and to work against laws banning gay marriage….”.
“UCC churches are autonomous, meaning the General Synod does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations.”
Its a move that may not change many minds on the subject. But the church’s stand demolishes the perception promoted by the Christian Right that all Christians are opposed to marriage equality. Signficantly too, in the run up to the vote, Rev. Andrew Young, a UCC minister, African-American civil rights leader, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, endorsed the resolution.
For all the noise and spin that will undoubtedly follow when the PR offices of the Christian Right open on Tuesday morning, it is worth listening to this major Christian denomination speaking in its own voice first. Here is part of a moving report on the vote from a UCC press release.
“Afterwards, instead of loud applause, there was a dignified moment of stillness broken only by the voice of the Rev. John H. Thomas who offered a prayer.”
“‘Lord Jesus. We give thanks for your presence, especially here this morning,’ the UCC’s general minister and president prayed in a soft, pastoral voice. ‘We have felt your warm embrace, stilling us as we tremble with joy, with hope, with fear, with disappointment…Let us use our hands not to clap, but to wipe away every tear.'”
“As the plenary adjourned for lunch, the mood remained as one would expect after a service of worship, rather than a session of earnest debate and serious deliberation. The most demonstrative sights were those of couples of all ages and genders locked in tearful embraces of thanksgiving for what Thomas would later also refer to as ‘freedom.'”
“Later, in a press conference, Thomas acknowledged that it was not lost on the gathering that this historic stand was taken on the nation’s Independence Day.”
“‘On this July Fourth the General Synod of the United Church of Christ has acted courageously to declare freedom, affirming marriage equality, affirming the civil rights of same gender couples to have their relationships recognized as marriages by the state, and encouraging our local churches to celebrate and bless those marriages,’ he said.”
“Thomas also acknowledged that the issue of marriage equality is ‘the source of great conflict’ not only in society but also in the churches. The UCC, he said, ‘is no exception’ and ‘there are clearly great differences among our own members over this.’”
“Synod action, he added, ‘does not presume a consensus of opinion among our members or our local churches, which are free and responsible to come to their own mind of this as on any other (issue). The General Synod speaks to and not for our local churches.’”
Chuck Currie has more details over at the UCC blog.
and they did it on Independence Day. Its a landmark event in the history of civil and human rights. Make no mistake.
And the Christian right is going to go ballistic.
the first leader on the Right to say the UCC aren’t “really Christians?”
my money would be on Lou Sheldon… but he is three hours behind in California…
I was wrong! 🙂
The Biblical Witness Fellowship, a member of the rightist Institute on Religion and Democracy-sponsored Association for Church Renewal was probably the first to pop-up out of the rightwing jack-in-the box to denounce the UCC’s historic endorsement of marriage equality. (The BFW previously called for the resignation of UCC President John Thomas for having endorsed the resolution.)
But the BFW went much farther than disagreement with the vote of the General Synod to endorse marriage equality in the church, and in the nation. The BFW in its statement implies that because of its stand, the UCC is no longer a Christian denomination:
Something strange I stumbled over. An “it’s about to happen” AP story by Errin Haines shows up with 18 hits on Google News.
Most run under some variant of “United Church of Christ to consider gay marriage” or “United Church of Christ near endorsing gay marriages,” though several fail to mention UCC by name in the headline. The Chicago Tribune, for example, ran the headline, “Church near endorsement of same-sex marriage.” But their rival, the Chicago Sun-Times went further from the norm with the headline, “Church struggles with same-sex marriage,” while my hometown paper, The Long Beach Press Telegram, under rightwing chain ownership, ran the headline, “Church not united on gay marriage.”
None of these, however, came close to the Tampa Tribune, which, for some reason did not show up on my search (author’s name plus beginning of first sentence). Their headline was “Unitarian Church May Back Gay Marriage.”
“What’s that?” you say. “Unitarian Church?” What in blazes are they talking about?
Well, the last paragraph of the story, truncated to less than half its full length, as it ran in the Tampa Tribune, reads as follows:
So, they let the story run just long enough to include the off-the-wall mention of Unitarians, then used that in the headline!
This has to rank as one of weirdest jobs of editing wire copy I have ever seen in all my born days. I can only surmise that someone was so upset by this news that they couldn’t see straight. Or gay, as the case may be.
The Press-Telegram can be maddeningly vacuous, but will occasionally run a great story that gets zero coverage anywhere else.
Great news, thanks for the diary and links!
I was so happy to see this and to hear it in their own words. I know they will take a lot of heat for this decision but hopefully they’ll weather the storm. And to pass with about 80 percent? Some good people there! Thanks for the link too.
church that tried to run the “bouncer ads?”
yup! Visit the UCC site and you can see the “bouncer” ads at the God is Still Speaking section.
Here is the legal argument this opens up:
If the state recognizes and gives legal status to marriages performed by one church but not another, then it is in violation of the First Amendment by giving favored treatment to or endorsement of the ceremonies/sacraments of one church and not another.
Maybe this would mean we’d get to disentangle the notion of “legal marriage” from that of “church marriage”? I’ve never liked the way they have been conflated in this country. Aren’t the two notions separate in other parts of the world?
of disentangling civil/religious marriage is to stop allowing clergy to serve as state proxies (I’d guess that the simultaneous civil and religious ceremonies performed by clergy plays a pretty big role in that conflation)…not that such an avenue will be pursued in this country any time soon.
The bill recently passed in Canada was called the Civil Marriage Act and most of the debate was about those religious/civil distinctions.
From the Prime Minister’s speech earlier this year… (the entire speech is worth reading, I’ve found myself quoting it frequently lately..)
In this, we are guided by the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which makes clear that in no church, no synagogue, no mosque, no temple – in no religious house will those who disagree with same-sex unions be compelled to perform them. Period. That is why this legislation is about civil marriage, not religious marriage.
Moreover — and this is crucially important – the Supreme Court has declared unanimously, and I quote: “The guarantee of religious freedom in section 2(a) of the Charter is broad enough to protect religious officials from being compelled by the state to perform civil or religious same-sex marriages that are contrary to their religious beliefs.”
The facts are plain: Religious leaders who preside over marriage ceremonies must and will be guided by what they believe. If they do not wish to celebrate marriages for same-sex couples, that is their right. The Supreme Court says so. And the Charter says so.
Conservatives have threatened to counter this legislation by removing government from marriage entirely, and making it solely a legal religious institution. They are saying some fabulously stupid things in their desperation….
There’s no chance that they’ll succeed at this. I think (hope?) they’ve underestimated the support for same-sex marriage in this country. Heck, one of our major churches (our United Church) has supported it for years, if memory serves.
The state does not recognize any religious marriages–it only recognizes civil marriages. When people have a clergy member marry them, it is not a matter of the state recognizing a religious rite. Instead, two ceremonies are occuring simultaneously: the religious and the civil. The religious ceremony is meaningless from the state’s perspective–only the civil aspect of the ceremony matters. There’s no religious discrimination involved.