[Robert] Hirschfeld also described starting a “wedding fast” at his church five years ago. In it, he asked for support in a “moratorium on presiding at any wedding until we came to some resolution about the jarring practice of performing weddings for heterosexual persons . . . while maintaining that homosexuals are disqualified from such blessings.”<\/p>\n
More than a decade before Hirschfeld refused to perform marriages for heterosexual couples, Rich, 59, was “raked over the coals” for presiding at a “holy union” of two lesbians at Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore in 1992.<\/p>\n
Rich said he was “careful to obtain all the necessary permissions to do this, including tacit permission to ‘do what you think is best pastorally’ from the bishop.” But several months later “The Baltimore Sun got wind of what had happened” and ran a page one story about it.<\/p>\n