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Presbyterian Church clears minister in same-sex marriage case
Rules minister who officiated same-sex weddings didn’t break church law
Published Thursday, 08-May-2008 in issue 1063
TIBURON, Calif. (AP) – The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has ruled that a California minister did not violate denominational law when she officiated at the weddings of two lesbian couples.
The unanimous ruling announced April 29 by the Louisville, Ky.-based court overturns a decision last year by a regional judicial committee that found the Rev. Jane Spahr guilty of misconduct and gave her a rebuke – the lightest possible punishment.
The church’s high court concluded that Spahr did not violate the church’s constitution because the ceremonies she performed were not marriages, even though that is what the veteran minister, herself a lesbian, called them. The constitution defines marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman.
“The ceremonies that are the subject of this case were not marriages. ... These were ceremonies between women, not between a man and a woman,” the 12-person court said in an eight-page opinion, adding that the midlevel court “found Spahr guilty of doing that which by definition cannot be done.”
The court majority went on to stress that the church’s position since 1991 has been to allow ministers to bless same-sex unions as long as they don’t mimic traditional marriages, suggesting that pastors who follow in Spahr’s footsteps could be subject to future discipline.
That suggestion drew a written dissent from five members of the tribunal, who said their colleagues had exceeded their authority in issuing the admonition.
“It is not the place of this Commission to go any farther and step into the legislative realm,” the dissenters wrote.
Spahr’s lawyer, Sara Taylor, agreed, calling the court majority’s attempt to prevent pastors from presiding at same-sex weddings an illogical act of “judicial activism.”
“It’s saying there is not a prohibition, but don’t do it again,” Taylor said.
Spahr, 65, who retired last year as the head of a church-sanctioned ministry for gay and lesbian Presbyterians, said she had no intention of abiding by a ruling she considered “duplicitous.”
“It really doesn’t matter to me what they might do. I must do what I have been called to do,” she said.
Like other mainline denominations, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been struggling to reconcile its long-held understand of marriage with the Christian precepts of tolerance and communion. Some members of the faith have been working to get the church to ordain openly gay clergy and to allow same-sex couples to have the same wedding rites as heterosexuals, while others have argued that biblical teachings require preserving marriage for a man and a woman.
In its ruling, the court referred to the ongoing debate.
“The tension the church has created between sexual orientation and sexual practice has led to turmoil and dissension that will likely continue for some time. The difficulties faced by this Commission in deciding this case reflect that tension,” the majority opinion stated.
Spahr was the first minister of her faith to be tried for officiating the weddings of same-sex couples, which she has continued to do since disciplinary charges were brought against her three years ago. She was one of several Presbyterian ministers facing disciplinary action for similar offenses.
Acting on a complaint brought by a minister in Washington state, the Presbytery of the Redwoods, which oversees 52 churches along the Pacific coast, brought the charges against Spahr in 2005 for marrying the couples from New York and California.
In 2006, a presbytery court found that Spahr had acted within her rights as a minister when she interpreted the church doctrine to permit her to perform acts of conscience such as presiding over the weddings.
The presbytery appealed the ruling to the church’s regional judicial commission, which said Spahr should have followed the church constitution instead of her conscience.
Spahr appealed that ruling to the church’s top court. If it had upheld the intermediate court’s finding, the most severe discipline Spahr faced was having the rebuke affirmed, according to Scott Clark, another of her lawyers.
“We are obviously pleased the commission lifted the censure,” Clark said.
Annie Senechal and Sherrill Figuera, one of the lesbian couples Spahr was accused of marrying, said the court’s dissenting opinion made them optimistic that the church’s governing body might vote to permit same-sex weddings when it meets in San Jose this summer.
“It hurts that the church does not recognize our love as equal. We believe God does recognize our love. We believe it is equal,” said Figuera, of Guerneville.
In its ruling, the court majority said the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was committed to fair and equal treatment of gay and lesbian members, but cautioned that there could be repercussions for mavericks like Spahr, who “may consider herself to be acting in the role of prophet.
“Prophecy contains risk and uncertainty both for those who would speak and those who listen,” it said. “The role of the prophet carries consequences. It is the burden of a church officer to accept the consequences of his or her actions that are the ecclesiastical equivalent of civil disobedience.”
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