EPISCOPAL Churches in California will begin offering gay weddings next month. On May 22, one of Los Angeles’ largest Episcopal parishes — All Saints Church, Pasadena, announced that in light of the California Supreme Court’s decision to strike down laws barring gay marriage, it “will treat all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage equally.”
While Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno (pictured) last week welcomed the May 15 court decision, he has yet to ban rites of gay marriage, and is reported to be forming a task force to study the issue.
While a referendum that would seek to ban gay marriage is expected to be placed before California voters in November, the court ruling takes effect on June 16, permitting the civil licensing and registration of same-sex marriages.
The clergy of All Saints have been performing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions for several years. Following the court ruling, the parish vestry voted to add gay marriage to its liturgical menu. Parish rector, the Rev Ed Bacon said the decision to go ahead with gay marriage was consistent with the church’s “identity as a peace and justice church.”
All Saints’ plan would be an explicit violation the canons. What does anybody think will be done about it?
What will be done? Zilch. Zero. Nada. After all, so many bishops are in explicit violation of the canons on so very many issues, with the ‘picnic-style’ communion for one and all leading the list.
Canons: N. Rules that can be used to fire upon those who disagree with you, but that you can flout if you have a “prophetic” reasoning.
TEC and the AC will not do anything. Maybe this can be adressed in the covenant when that comes on line in 2250?
The question I wonder is if the State of California voters pass the gay marriage ban will that stop Bruno, Jerry Lamb etc. from their gay marriage ceremonies, or will they continue to break the laws of the state?
Intercessor
It looks as if those with an agenda aware that their days are limited are trying to create ‘facts on the ground’ both in the US and in Canada. If they wreck their churches or the Communion, what do they care. Nothing but nothing but THE AGENDA must be allowed to prevail.
The recent decisions by the secular courts don’t really affect the decisions California parishes or dioceses make. Activist clergy and laity might claim they do, but they don’t.
Religious bodies have always been empowered to have any kind of ceremonies they want (assuming nobody is being murdered, etc.), and they have always been entitled to refuse to engage in certain religious ceremonies on any grounds they wish. Both of these rights are protected by the First Amendment.
For example, the Roman Catholic church in California will always be entitled to refuse to marry all kinds of people, based on their religious principles, including those people entitled by law to a civil marriage (e.g. two persons who have divorced spouses still living). The RC church will always be entitled to refuse to hire women priests, again on grounds of conscience, no matter what laws are passed forbidding gender discrimination.
On the other hand, even if CA passes a constitutional ban on all gay marriage, UFMCC and other religious bodies will always be entitled to have “gay marriage” ceremonies (which they’ve had for years) — as long as the rector doesn’t try to sign papers affirming that they have a CIVIL marriage recognized by the state.
So the recent CA decision really has no relevance to what Bruno or All Saints do or don’t do. They’ll do whatever they want to do, but it won’t be because they are trying to “follow” California law. We are lucky to be living in a country where the State has no ability to tell churches what rites they can engage in.
Well said Jon…Thanks for your insight…
“We are lucky to be living in a country where the State has no ability to tell churches what rites they can engage in. ”
Jon, I hope you are right. I know that RC adoption agencies are NOT churches, but in every sense of the word, they are part of a church. We see that in Mass. and England, the RC church is getting out of the adoption work because the state has decided they MUST conform to the state law. it’s a stretch I know, but it is a great loss to the adoption programs…..is it possible, that the state will tell a denomination that they “must” perform same sex marriages if they perform regular marriages? Just wondering.
Sure the state can. All they need to do is say that you marry all or none. Now of course the Churches can bless who they want, but marrages require a state license and that the state can control.
Br Michael, I believe that the concept of “separation of Church and State” still applies. I don’t see how the State of California, for example, can FORCE my priest to marry ANYONE if his doing so violates his religious beliefs.
Do you remember the letter from the ABC promised by Bp Tom Wright that was supposed to state that an acceptance of an invitation meant acceptance of working within Windsor. Well, Charlie Brown got the football pulled away by Lucy again.
But there were supposed to be phone calls. Wonder if Big Jon got a phone call. Of course, Big Jon can tell Rowan, “It doesn’t happen in my diocese.” (“And I avoid reading the newspapers.”)
The church can perform legitimate marriages regardless of what the state says about marriage licenses. And this is the way it should be. An amendment to the constitution has only the power to regulate civil unions. And that too is the way it should be. The problem lies in what ssm will do to the concept of marriage because ssm’s violate scripture, at the very least. Can a church claim to be a Christian church and still perform ssm’s? Clearly not, but what then? The answer is “Nothing,” and therein lies the trouble, for this will be one more case where the destruction of standards leaves our culture at a loss to know what it is, and what the vital acts of life are.
The homophiles remark jeeringly that Mass’s law did not cause the sky to fall, as if that were the risk. It is not. Rather it means it is a little more certain that our world will die, not with a bang, but with a whimper. It is an old joke: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Unitarian? Answer: Someone who knocks at your door but doesn’t know why. And that last portion of the punch tells the miserable truth: We will still act, but without meaning. It would be better for the sky to fall. Larry
CA Sec’y of State announced that the marriage initiative has been certified for the Nov ballot, i.e. enough signatures were collected.
Bill, now that the marriage initiative has been certified, we can expect a “Battle Royale” this November, and judging by past votes on the matter of same-sex “marriage,” I believe that it will pass……by what margin, I can’t even begin to guess.
As expected, most of the support for same-sex “marriage” comes from the large cities and metropolitan areas of our state, but it’s a completely different story out here in the hinterlands……which are MUCH more populous. The mere mention of same-sex “marriage” here in this town is likely to garner one some very strange looks…..like you’re from another planet!
In response to #7, Jon is correct in the abstract, in the sense that a religious body can call a ceremony a “marriage” regardless of whether the state recognizes it as a marriage. To take a silly example, a religious body could conduct “marriages of the dead” (like the Mormon baptisms of the dead) if it wanted, but a state would not recognize it as a valid marriage for inheritance purposes.
Jon is wrong, however, as a matter of Episcopal canon law, which requires conformity to state law. Canon 18 says:
[blockquote]CANON 18: Of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony
Sec. 1. Every Member of the Clergy of this Church shall conform to
the laws of the State governing the creation of the civil status of
marriage, and also to the laws of this Church governing the
solemnization of Holy Matrimony.
Sec. 2. Before solemnizing a marriage the Member of the Clergy shall
have ascertained:
(a) That both parties have the right to contract a marriage according
to the laws of the State.[/blockquote]
Section 3 of the Canon 18 then provides that:
[blockquote](d) The Member of the Clergy shall have required that the parties
sign the following declaration:
(e) “We, A.B. and C.D., desiring to receive the blessing of Holy
Matrimony in the Church, do solemnly declare that we hold marriage to be a lifelong union of husband and wife as it is set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.
(f) “We believe that the union of husband and wife, in heart, body,
and mind, is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help
and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and,
when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their
nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.[/blockquote]
To comply with Canon law, marriage in the Episcopal church must both comply with the local state law and be between a “husband and wife as it is set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.” At least temporarily, a same-sex marriage complies with California law. It would not comply with the Canon, because it is not between a husband and wife in accordance with the BCP.
Now we all know that the Canons don’t apply to liberals and are only enforced against conservatives, so I don’t expect Canon 18 to make any difference to All Saints or the Bishop of LA, but All Saints will be in flagrant violation of national canons regardless of what California law might say.
#11… You are right. There’s simply way too long a tradition of 1st Amendment rulings that make it absolutely clear that a minister (priest, pastor, etc.) cannot be required to perform a marriage ceremony (or any number of other religious rites) for a person or couple if it violates the religious beliefs of his church. In order for that kind of thing to happen the 1st Amendment would have to be repealed — and again, paranoia aside, that’s simply not going to happen unless we have a military junta that takes over the US.
Again, a good case study is the Roman Catholic church in the US. There is simply no question that all kinds of people who have every right to be married (based on civil law) have been turned away for decades by the RC church — the priest has said “we will not perform this rite for you.” No way. Period. And there has never been the slightest question of anyone have a legal leg to stand on if they tried to sue the RC church for this. The most common scenario involves a couple where at least one of them has a divorced spouse still living. In earlier decades the RC church would also refuse to marry unless both man and woman were RCs or willing to convert, and many bishops or priests may still do that.
Likewise, the RC church is completely shielded from laws forbidding gender discrimination — even if such laws became part of a state’s constitution and absolutely mandated the hiring of women in all occupations, it wouldn’t matter. The 1st Amendment and its history in the courts is immensely powerful and would trump anything else. Thus the RC church will always be entitled to refuse to hire female priests — simply on the grounds of their gender and regardless of whatever other legal machinery might exist punishing gender discrimination.
Jon, #17, you are correct about gender discrimination at the present. But times are changing. The law will never force gender hiring on the RCs but it may take away its charitable exemption one day. The law will not force any church to marry homosexuals, but it may take away any church’s ability to marry heterosexuals, unless it also marries homosexuals. In fact, I will bet you will see lawsuits for these very propositions in the next 10 years, and some states will adopt them. Only a reasonably traditional U.S. Supreme Court will keep our standards in check. Thus, I commend the next election of our President to all.
#18… hi Billy! I understand your worry, and I suppose anything is possible (Martians could invade tomorrow), but honestly there such an intense and long legal tradition of interpreting the 1st Amendment as prohibiting any state interference in the rites and and ceremonies of a church, that every legal expert I have talked to today (I know a fair number) views the scenario you describe as impossible. Remember that there were times when Roman Catholics were in a comparitively tiny minority here in this country, and protestants had a virtual monopoly on civic power with a great deal of anti-RC prejudice; and yet there was never a case of Protestants successfully telling RCs what they could and couldn’t do inside their own church. Such a law would have been laughed out of court on 1st Amendment grounds.
#16… hey Jason. I’m not 100% sure what it is I said that you disagree with (“Jon is wrong….”).. You are saying that TEC has some particular canons saying that rectors shouldn’t conduct marriage ceremonies between people if the persons were not eligible for marriage according to state law. I’m not terribly surprised. That’s again part of what it means for churches to be free of state interference — they can create whatever policies they wish regarding rites and ceremonies they engage in, including the freedom to state as policy that the ceremony has to conform to this or that state law.
All I was saying was pretty simple:
(1) The State cannot tell a church “you can’t perform such and such a ceremony between two people.”
(2) The State cannot tell a church you MUST perform such and such a ceremony between two people.”
What the State CAN do is forbid a rector from signing a legal document declaring that two persons have entered into a state-recognized civil marriage when the two persons are not entitled to marry by state law. (This is a service that most priests/pastors do for the couple traditionally. It’s essentially the minister acting as a civil magistrate for the moment.)
All the stuff about TEC’s canon law is interesting, but I am unsure how it bears on my basically simple message, which is that the CA decision doesn’t really have any significant impact on what we can or can’t do in our parishes. If you mean that, given the recent legal approval, and if we later to decide to change our canons to permit SSM, then TEC parishes in CA can if their bishop approves conduct SSM ceremonies and sign the civil papers as well — then of course I’d agree with you. But surely that’s obvious? If the state agrees with SSM and the church agrees with SSM then the church will sometimes do SSMs?
THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT HAS REFUSED TO STAY ITS GAY MARRIAGE RULING.