Blessings and Anguish for Pastors in California

Some clergy members in California spent Tuesday officiating at same-sex weddings made legal by a State Supreme Court ruling that took effect on Monday night. Others spent the day speaking out against same-sex marriage.

And there were those who spent the day in anguish, torn between the laws of their state and the laws of their church.

The Rev. Kimberly A. Willis said she had not decided what to do because she wanted to be able to minister to all of her congregants at Christ Church United Methodist, in Santa Rosa, about 10 percent of whom are gay. But if she officiates at a same-sex wedding, she could be charged with violating the United Methodists’ Book of Discipline, put on trial and defrocked.

So Ms. Willis spent Sunday on the sidelines at a religious service in which several same-sex couples were celebrating their imminent marriages. Ms. Willis spied a gay couple in the front row who attend her church, and said she felt outraged that she could not join the other ministers leading the ceremony to bless them.

“It was surreal to watch this and think, How can I not bless these people?” Ms. Willis said. “I can bless a car, and I have. I’ve been asked to bless animals, children, homes, bread, grape juice, but I can’t bless a gay and lesbian couple. That’s unreal to me.”

The California Supreme Court has spoken on same-sex marriage, but the religious issues are far from settled.

The tension could be seen in Bakersfield, where the Rev. Tim Vivian of Grace Episcopal Church and about a dozen of his parishioners sat on the edge of a courtyard outside the Kern County Clerk’s Office, where same-sex couples were marrying. Mr. Vivian said he was “in solidarity” with the couples but would not participate in the ceremonies because his diocese was in turmoil over the gay issue and his superiors had asked him to refrain.

Clergy members showed up at the courtyard in large numbers to marry couples because the county clerk had refused to allow marriages — same-sex, or not — in her offices (although she would issue the marriage licenses).

When asked whether he expected one day to marry same-sex couples in his church, Mr. Vivian said, “Very much so.”

Not only are some denominations divided internally, but now California religious leaders on both sides of the debate are preparing to battle over a November ballot initiative, put forward by conservatives, that seeks to amend the State Constitution and effectively overturn the court’s decision on same-sex marriage.

But in churches that have not resolved their stance on homosexuality and same-sex marriage, the court decision is likely to provoke even more confusion. In the Episcopal Church, bishops in different parts of the state have issued different directives to their clergy members.

Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles has authorized clergy members to perform same-sex marriages, said the Rev. Susan Russell, associate pastor at All Saints Church, and president of Integrity, a gay and lesbian advocacy group in the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California, which covers the San Francisco Bay Area, is urging all couples, heterosexual and homosexual, to first be married in a secular service and then come to the church for a blessing. Since the Episcopal Church does not allow rites for same-sex marriages, he said, this is a way to treat all couples equally.

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New York Times, United States -