106 yr Washington Cathedral Will Start Ringing It’s Bells For GaY MaRrIaGe
Washington
The Washington National Cathedral had been ready to embrace same-sex marriage for some time, though it took a series of recent events and a new leader for the prominent, 106-year-old church to recently announce that it would begin hosting such nuptials.
The key development came last July when the Episcopal Church approved a ceremony for same-sex unions at its General Convention in Indianapolis, followed by the legalization of gay marriage in Maryland, which joined the District of Columbia. The national church made a special allowance for marriage ceremonies in states where gay marriage is legal.
Longtime same-sex marriage advocate the Very Rev. Gary Hall took over as the cathedral's dean in October. Conversations began even before he arrived to clear the way for the ceremonies at the church that so often serves as a symbolic house of prayer for national celebrations and tragedies.
The Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, authorized use of the new marriage rite in December for 89 congregations in D.C. and Maryland. Each priest then decides whether to marry same-sex couples.
The cathedral's congregation and leadership include gays and lesbians. The church was just waiting for the right moment and the right leader.
"This was something that was brewing in the cathedral. We were really waiting for him," Budde told the Associated Press. "It would have been inconceivable for the Cathedral to call somebody who was not in favor of full equality for gay and lesbian people."
Cathedral officials said the church will be among the first Episcopal congregations to implement a new rite of marriage adapted from the blessing ceremony for gay and lesbian couples approved by the Episcopal Church's national governing body.
Official Episcopal law still defines marriage as between a man and a woman, so the cathedral says it will be performing weddings that combine civil marriage ceremonies under local law with a blessing from the church. They will use the new language approved for same-sex couples instead of the marriage ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer. Only one major U.S. Protestant group, the United Church of Christ, has endorsed same-sex marriage outright.
Hall said performing same-sex marriages is an opportunity to break down barriers and build a more inclusive community "that reflects the diversity of God's world."
"I read the Bible as seriously as fundamentalists do," he said. "And my reading of the Bible leads me to want to do this because I think it's being faithful to the kind of community that Jesus would have us be."
The move is also a chance to influence the nation, beyond the Episcopal Church.
"As a kind of tall-steeple, public church in the nation's capital, by saying we're going to bless same-sex marriages, conduct same-sex marriages, we are really trying to take the next step for marriage equality in the nation and in the culture," Hall said.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, applauded the cathedral's change Wednesday as a milestone.
"Today, the church sent a simple but powerful message to LGBT Episcopalians — you are loved just the way you are, and for that we embrace you," said the Rev. MacArthur Flournoy, deputy director of HRC's religion and faith program.
The conservative National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said the change was "disappointing but not surprising," given the direction of the Episcopal Church.
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