Church Censures Minister After Same-Sex Marriages
For four days last week, the small beige Covenant Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Napa was turned into a courtroom.
The Rev. Jane Spahr, 68, was on trial, accused of failing to “further the peace, unity and purity of the church” by marrying 16 gay and lesbian couples in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California.
Her judges were six mostly white-haired Presbyterian elders, who sat at a table beneath a cross, listening intently to the proceedings.
Friday began once again with a prayer. Then James Jones, the moderator of the judicial commission, stood and declared Ms. Spahr guilty of most of the charges. “We determine that you are hereby censured by rebuke,” Mr. Jones said. “You are enjoined to avoid such offenses in the future.”
Ms. Spahr, who has short gray hair and deep blue eyes, slumped in her chair. Her supporters, including several of the couples she had married, broke down.
During the church trial, Bibles were thumbed, the Presbyterian Book of Order was often consulted — and interpretations clashed.
The prosecutor, JoAn Blackstone, a former lawyer with a white braid encircling her head, argued that Ms. Spahr had defied the Book of Order, which defines marriage as “a civil contract between a woman and a man.”
Ms. Blackstone said that more study, not “ecclesiastical disobedience,” was the right path.
“Our church is simply not ready at this time to make change about the way it defines marriage,” Ms. Blackstone said in her closing argument.
A member of the panel, the Rev. Ted Crouch, suggested that might take too long. “Presbyterians love to form committees and study things,” he said, and the audience laughed.
Scott Clark, who led Ms. Spahr’s defense, each day placed a small metal cross on top of a Bible on top of the Book of Order before him. In a gentle manner, Mr. Clark maintained that there was no explicit prohibition, and pulled parables from the New Testament.
Ms. Spahr, who has been a Presbyterian minister since the 1970s and now lives in San Francisco, has long worked to bring gay men and lesbians into the church. It was an anonymous complaint about the weddings that prompted the trial.
“This church asks me to be in the closet about my sexual orientation and about my faith,” Ms. Spahr said on the witness stand. “I am a Christian lesbian pastor who marries heterosexual couples and lesbian and gay couples; I cannot lie about either part of me nor would I ask any pastor to do this.”
Eleven gay and lesbian couples she had married also testified. Ms. Spahr listened to them, at times smiling, at times crying.
Katie Morrison and Curran Reichert — both lesbian pastors who left the Presbyterian Church — were married by Ms. Spahr in 2008. They completed the many months of counseling and “homework” that Ms. Spahr requires before she marries a couple. And last year they had a daughter, Ellis, who they gave the middle name Jane.
“We named her Jane because we see Janey as a living saint,” Ms. Morrison said.
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