Presbyterian minister rebuked for same sex marriages
The Presbyterian Church seems to not be able to decide on the status of performing same sex marriages by its ministers.
The Reverend Jane Adams Spahr, a Presbyterian minister, violated her church regulations in performing sixteen same-sex marriages in 2008. At that time such marriages were allowed by the law in CA. The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Redwoods Presbytery proclaimed after listening to accounts in a case that started Wednesday.
The judgment found, by a majority vote, that Spahr was accountable of three counts of breaking the church’s Book of Order by performing same-sex ceremonies as marriages, persisting in performing so in a “pattern or practice of disobedience” and violating her ordination vows by carrying out the ceremonies.
Nevertheless, the court rejected the final charge that supposed the minister “failed to further the peace, unity and purity of the church. “We commend Dr. Spahr for helping us realize that peace without justice is no peace,” the panel said with regards to the last charge.
They also thanked the people whose ceremonies Reverend Spahr completed, and who testified for the minister’s benefit, for their “courageous and heart-rending testimonies. “The Presbyterian constitution does not clearly restrict same-sex weddings and, in fact, describes marital life as “a gift God has given to all humankind for the well being of the entire human family.” Yet it also describes spousal relationship as “a civil contract between a woman and a man.”
Unlike the flip-flopping Presbyterian Church the Church of Spiritual Humanism does endorse the right of consenting adults to enter into and celebrate a committed union with each other regardless of their orientation or gender. While we do not presume to claim anything as “a gift God has given,” we do affirm that if marriage is a legal option for a same gender couple our ordained ministers are fully authorized to perform a wedding ceremony sanctified by our church. If such ceremonies are not legal in certain jurisdictions our clergy would never be penalized by the Church for performing them.