Defying Their Church’s Stance on Gays

In the largest protest by clergy against their church’s stand against homosexuality, at least 78 United Methodist Church pastors today are scheduled to bless the union of two lesbians in Sacramento.

The Methodist church’s highest court ruled last August that uniting homosexuals in “holy unions” is a violation of church law. Clergy found guilty of flouting the law could be defrocked.

Because of that, today’s ceremony, which is believed to be the first since the August ruling, is being treated by church leaders and gay rights advocates as a watershed event. Supporters of gay rights compare it to the march on Selma, Ala., in the 1960s by civil rights workers, while opponents of gay marriage see it as a deliberately provocative act by ministers intent on flouting church policy.

“This is an incredibly powerful witness,” said the Rev. Edward Hansen, senior pastor at Hollywood United Methodist Church, where a service and prayer vigil are scheduled at noon in solidarity with the Sacramento church. “There are clergy who are willing to risk their ordained status to support this witness against a grave injustice.”

At the center of the controversy are two active members of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Sacramento, Jeanne Barnett, 68, and Ellie Charlton, 63, who have been partners for 14 years.

The blessing of their union by 78 ministers, to be witnessed by 1,200 invited guests at the Sacramento Convention Center, marks a dramatic escalation in a wrenching battle over human sexuality that has divided Christian and Jewish denominations for years.

The point man in what he once called “ecclesiastical disobedience” is the Rev. Don Fado, 65, senior pastor of St. Mark’s.

“My obligation is to my vows to share the good news of Jesus Christ,” Fado said in explaining what he called his first act of disobedience in 42 years of ordained ministry. “Our religion is not exclusive. It’s inclusive. The Gospel is for everyone. There are no second-class citizens.”

Equally adamant is Fado’s resident bishop, the Rev. Melvin G. Talbert, who said that he will uphold church law even though he personally agrees with Fado that the church should bless same-sex unions.

“I think my church is wrong on this issue and I owe it to my people to say that,” Talbert said.

But Talbert said he has no choice in view of the ruling last August by the church’s highest court, the Judicial Council, which declared that blessing same-sex unions violates church law.

“I have had to realize that as a bishop of the church my job is to uphold the law of the church and I have said that’s what I will do,” Talbert said.

Saturday’s events are not the first time that the United Methodist Church, the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination, has been buffeted by such controversy. Last year, the church drew national attention when an Omaha, Neb., pastor, the Rev. Jimmy Creech, blessed a same-sex union.

Creech was brought to a church trial, but was acquitted of having violated church policy. He had argued that the church’s 1996 policy--that “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches”--was not binding church law.

After Creech’s acquittal, the church’s highest court moved to remove any ambiguity, ruling that the statement against gay marriages is binding law within the church. It is against that backdrop that Fado and more than four-score other ministers plan today to bless the “holy union” between Barnett and Charlton.

In a sermon last October, Fado told his Sacramento congregation, “I can come to your home and offer prayers of blessings for the house. I can even bless your place of business, regardless of what it is. I can even bless your automobile. I can bless your animals. But I cannot bless you if you are two people of the same sex who want to make a vow to God of fidelity to each other.”

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Talbert said he expected a confrontation as soon as the church’s General Assembly first approved its statement against gay marriages. “You have this kind of feeling in your gut, and the thing I said to myself then and to a bishop sitting next to me, ‘This will be back to haunt us,’ ” Talbert said.

The issue is one that has haunted virtually every major Protestant denomination in America, as well as the Jewish Reform movement.

Just last August--the same month that the Methodist court acted--the world’s Anglican bishops overwhelmingly declared that they could not countenance either the blessing of same-gender unions or the ordination of noncelibate gay men and lesbians to the priesthood.

Likewise, the ordination controversy has dogged the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which currently forbids the ordination of “avowed professing” homosexuals or lesbians.

In 1996, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops opposed attempts to grant legal status of marriage to same-sex relationships. Meanwhile, the controversy has also included the nation’s largest Jewish denomination. Last June, the Central Conference of American Rabbis tabled discussion of a report thatrecommended the blessing of same-gender unions.

Church leaders say they expect the controversy to continue. “People are feeling free to talk about it in a way that they couldn’t before,” Talbert said. But Talbert knows that the issue has the potential to split the church. Indeed, Fado said that several ministers or congregations withdrew from the Methodist church after the Omaha controversy.

But years from now, Talbert said, he believes people will wonder what all the controversy was about, in the same way that they wonder why civil rights was ever an issue in the church.