CLGS

The Rev. Rosa Lee Harden found herself quite unexpectedly caught up on the recent marriage license frenzy in San Francisco. Here are her reflections on the usual frustrations and the unexpected joys of being an agent of the state when it comes to weddings.

If you think that there is strict separation between church and state in this country we live in, you might want to check in with a clergy person who functions in a congregation composed mostly of gay folks and their straight friends.

We've done a pretty good job in America of constructing that "Chinese Wall" with one glaring exception: Marriage. If I am marrying a straight couple, a surprising percentage of the time those I am marrying are annoyed that they CAN get married, while their gay friends cannot, and sometimes want to do something in their ceremony that acknowledges that. One straight couple I'm doing premarital counseling with is planning a time in their ceremony when ALL couples will be asked to join in a part of the vows with them.

When I do gay ceremonies, I'm usually annoyed. Frustrated that the rite I will be performing will have no legal status in the eyes of the state as it does for straight couples. AND annoyed that even in our Episcopal Church, where many of us are free to perform blessings for same-sex couples, there is no common understanding what that blessing might mean.

Personalizing or individualizing wedding ceremonies can be sweet, but for me as a priest who holds dearly to our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, the idea that we all have a "common" understanding of what it is we are pledging ourselves to is very important. As we live in community with one another in the church we share a basic understanding of what it means to be in a marriage, how that marriage might be beneficial to us as partners, and more significantly how our spirituality may be enhanced by living together committed to this most intimate dance of love. That ideal is in turn supported by the community that upholds these values.

I don't like it that I cannot offer that same level of common understanding about the value and spirituality of relationship to all people in my community. It's enough for me to want to say 'I just won't do marriages OR blessings of same-sex unions'. But of course, I do them anyway. The act of standing with two people who want to make that commitment to one another in love, and who want to ask their community's blessing upon that relationship is too important to me to pass up, even though at times it makes me squeamish.

All of that frustration vanished for all too brief a Valentine's Weekend when the City of San Francisco declared City Hall to be Brigadoon and same-sex couples by the droves lined up to have LEGAL marriages performed by members of various establishments, both civic and sacred.

I was blessed when I was invited by two members of my parish to come down to City Hall on Thursday afternoon and perform their marriage. For the first time in history, I could, as an Episcopal Priest, say to these two women who I stood in front of 'I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God's Word, you do now confess it' and listen to the beautiful, truthful silence that followed.

It is my hope and prayer that some day in the very near future that our government will realize that it is none of its damn business upon whom I pronounce God's blessing. And, perhaps even more important to me, I pray for the day that the Church will realize that God's blessings pour down on all who ask it, regardless of their sexuality, and regardless of what the government of our country has declared.