Gay Wedding Was A Trial For The Reformed Church : NPR

After Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, Norman Kansfield’s daughter asked him to perform her wedding ceremony.

Kansfield, a respected pastor, scholar and lifelong member of the Reformed Church in America, agreed to marry Ann and her long-time girlfriend. He informed the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey, where he served as president, of his plans.

“I had thought that there would be a request for my resignation,” Kansfield says. “Nobody did that.”

It was a June wedding.

EnlargeLily Percy/NPR

Norman Kansfield and his wife, Mary, at their home in eastern Pennsylvania. Kansfield was put on trial by the Reformed Church after performing his daughter’s same-sex marriage.

“I’m a very emotional person, so I was quite pleased that I had not choked up or teared up throughout the service,” Kansfield says. “And then afterward, two women came to me and said that that was the first service in which they had felt genuinely part of church in years. They were a lesbian couple, and, at that point, I wept.”

The First Trial In Church History

Though no attempt was made to stop Kansfield from officiating his daughter’s wedding, the seminary’s board decided not to renew his contract the next year.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, who served as general secretary of the Reformed Church for 17 years before retiring in 2011, says Kansfield left the church no other option.

“Up to that point, it had kind of been don’t-ask-don’t-tell,” Granberg-Michaelson says. “It was clear that while this certainly was a father’s love for his daughter, it also was an intentional statement that Norm was trying to make.”

via Gay Wedding Was A Trial For The Reformed Church : NPR.

Maryknoll: Vatican has dismissed Roy Bourgeois from order

Roy Bourgeois, a longtime peace activist and priest who had come under scrutiny for his support of women’s ordination, has been dismissed from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, which he served for 45 years, according to the congregation.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made the dismissal in October, according to a news release issued Monday afternoon by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer acting on Bourgeois’ behalf, told NCR he was not aware of the move.

Doyle said he and Bourgeois met with Maryknoll’s superior general, Fr. Edward Dougherty, in June, and the issue of dismissal had not been discussed.

“The idea then was that things would continue and they would not dismiss Roy and they would continue to dialogue,” Doyle said. “And then this just happened, unilaterally. [Bourgeois] had no idea.”

Bourgeois was not available for comment Monday afternoon.

Mike Virgintino, the manager of communications for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, declined to answer any questions about the matter.

“I cannot answer any additional questions,” Virgintino said. “We have to stay with that statement. I can’t answer anything more.”

– full report at National Catholic Reporter.

Catholic Group Wants Answers on Archdiocese Spending

EAGAN, Minn. — A group of nearly 100 Catholics is calling for accountability and transparency in the church’s finances.

At a meeting in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagan Thursday night, Martha Turner of Catholic Coalition for Church Reform said she hopes to start a conversation with the Archdiocese for St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“We would like to hear your stories,” Turner said. “We want to hear from you, we want to hear your experiences and your concerns about how the money is used that you donate to your parishes and that some of which ends up in the archdiocese.”

The archdiocese spent $650,000 in a failed attempt to pass a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Michael Anderson, one of the leaders of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, asked the audience if the archdiocese’s spending was improper.

“How would we feel if the archdiocese had invested a million dollars saying ‘vote no’ in opposition to the marriage amendment?” Anderson asked. “Would we be complaining about that? I don’t know. I think it’s an honest question.”

Several people at the event said the church’s stance made them feel like they had to choose between going to Mass and supporting gay friends and family. They said they wanted to have more of a say in the way the church spends its money. A few said they had reduced their donations or stopped going to church.

via The Progressive Catholic Voice

Related articles

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TV’s ‘The New Normal’ Talks Catholic — and Does It Well!

NBC’s comedy series The New Normal emerges from a shifting American culture increasingly accepting of new family arrangements and consciously engages the dynamics these present . Recently, The New Normal took up Catholicism in relation to the gay protagonist, David — and did so in a strikingly positive, fact-based manner.

As background, the premise of the show is that a gay couple hire a single mother with a nine-year-old daughter as their surrogate in the quest to have a child. Episode 7 features the couple, David and Bryan, struggling to decide on godparents for their child, as they are two people who identify as non-spiritual.

…..

So often the LGBT community and the Catholic community are pitted against each other in entertainment. The New Normal overcomes false dichotomies to reveal reality. LGBT Catholics and allies have long known that good priests are building welcoming parishes, that the Church is not anti-gay in its fundamentals, that LGBT persons desire a place in the Catholic faith, and that, with commitment, change can occur should we be willing to seek it.

The conversations between Bryan and Father Michael are comedic, poignant, and surprisingly truthful moments for a popular television show. While as a student of theology, I would have liked to see more nuance in several statements of the show’s dialogue, it is heartening to see mainstream entertainment positively reflect on the good relationships and good work of so many Catholics who are trying to make the Church a welcoming and affirming place for our LGBT brothers and sisters.

-full commentary by Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry, at  Bondings 2.0.

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• New Organization of LGBT Students on Catholic Campuses Is Launched ” Bondings 2.0 (queerchurchnews.wordpress.com)
• Campus Chronicles: Georgetown U. Celebrates Coming Out Month (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)
• Catholic Rebellion on Gay Marriage: US – and Italy (queeringthechurch.com)
• Italian Catholic Priest Comes Out (newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com)
• What Really Happens at the Soho Masses? (opentabernacle.wordpress.com)
• “The New Normal” is Anything But Normal & It’s a Good Thing (dualshow.com)
• New Show Recap: The New Normal, Episode 1.07, “The Godparent Trap” (persephonemagazine.com)

 

Women Bishops: CoE Press Release; News Commentary

Following the defeat by General Synod of the women bishops legislation this afternoon the Church of England issued this press release.

General Synod Rejects Draft Legislation on Women Bishops

20 November 2012

The General Synod of the Church of England has voted to reject the draft legislation to allow women to become bishops.

Under the requirements of the Synod the legislation required a two-thirds majority in each of the three voting houses for final draft approval. Whilst more than two thirds voted for the legislation in both the House of Bishops (44-03) and the House of Clergy (148-45), the vote in favour of the legislation in the House of Laity was less than two-thirds (132-74). The vote in the House of Laity fell short of approval by six votes.

In total 324 members of the General Synod voted to approve the legislation and 122 voted to reject it.

The consequence of the “no” vote of terminating any further consideration of the draft legislation means that it will not be possible to introduce draft legislation in the same terms until a new General Synod comes into being in 2015, unless the ‘Group of Six’ (the Archbishops, the Prolocutors and the Chair and Vice Chair of the House of Laity) give permission and report to the Synod why they have done so.

Speaking after the vote the Rt Revd Graham James, Bishop of Norwich, said: “A clear majority of the General Synod today voted in favour of the legislation to consecrate women as Bishops. But the bar of approval is set very high in this Synod. Two-thirds of each house has to approve the legislation for it to pass. This ensures the majority is overwhelming. The majority in the house of laity was not quite enough. This leaves us with a problem. 42 out of 44 dioceses approved the legislation and more than three quarters of members of diocesan synods voted in favour. There will be many who wonder why the General Synod expressed its mind so differently.

“The House of Bishops recognises that the Church of England has expressed its mind that women should be consecrated as bishops. There is now an urgent task to find a fresh way forward to which so many of those who were opposed have pledged themselves.”

The House of Bishops of the Church of England will meet at 08.30am on Wednesday morning in emergency session to consider the consequences of the vote.

Exact voting figures will be found here.

via Thinking Anglicans.

Commentary added by Thinking Anglicans:

To clarify the statement “The vote in the House of Laity fell short of approval by six votes.”, if six members of the House of Laity had voted in favour instead of against, the vote would in that house would have reached the necessary two-thirds majority.

Also at Thinking Anglicans, is a series of useful posts summarizing the reactions from a wide range of sources:

Women Bishops Press Release (as above, with comments by TA readers)

More Responses to the Vote, Part 1, with responses to the vote by:

• Affirming Catholicism
• WATCH
• Inclusive Church
• GRAS

Press Coverage and Commentary updated Wednesday morning, with headlines from:

• Guardian
  • Church in crisis as it turns its back on women bishops
  • Campaigners for women bishops in despair as laity rejects reform
  • Andrew Brown writes for Comment is Free: A long and boring suicide note
  • Church among men-only stragglers over women bishops
  • Lucy Winkett writes a disaster for the church I love
• Telegraph
  • Church’s final no to women bishops
  • Damian Thompson writes the Church of England votes for civil war
  • Tim Stanley blogs Church is paralysed by its conflicting obsessions of equality and consensus
• Independent
  • Beyond belief: Church is rocked by ‘no’ vote against women bishops plan
  • Editorial A decision that leaves the Church in the past
  • The paper’s founder and the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, writes that the vote was a profoundly emotional experience, and it ended in disaster
• Channel 4

and a link to CofE Media Briefing for today.

More Responses to the Vote, Part 2, with commentary from:

• Church of England Evangelical Council
• Statement from Chairman of Reform on Today’s Synod Vote
• Forward in Faith reacts to the defeat of the draft Measure
• Catholic Group on General Synod

 *******

 More commentary:

• Emergency meeting for bishops as church reels from Synod vote (Ekklesia)
• Church vote rejects women bishops (bbc.co.uk)
• Church vote rejects moves to allow women bishops (standard.co.uk)
• Women Bishops: CoE Press Release; News Commentary (christianityandsexuality.org)
• Women bishops vote a ‘grim day’ (bbc.co.uk)
• UK News: Church bid for women bishops fails (walesonline.co.uk)
• Church of England rejects female bishops by six votes (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
• Church of England General Synod votes against women bishops despite late plea from next Archbishop of Canterbury (independent.co.uk)
• Church of England Refuses to Allow Female Bishops (nytimes.com)
• Church vote rejects women bishops (bbc.co.uk)
• Women Bishops draft measure rejected by General Synod (thinkinganglicans.org.uk)

Catholic ‘Dignity’

According to “Vatican digs in after gay marriage advances” (Tribune, Nov. 11), the Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriages because “Catholic teaching holds that homosexuals should be respected and treated with dignity but that homosexual acts are ‘intrinsically disordered.’” If you truly believe the former, how can you believe the latter?

If you believe in treating blacks with dignity, but that they should also be slaves, what kind of dignity is that?

Being polite and kind is not treating someone with dignity, which means “the quality of being worthy or esteemed.” How is denying a life of committed love to someone wired to be attracted to the same sex treating them with esteem?

Of what worth do you esteem them to be worthy of? Of being an emotional eunuch? It’s that self-fulfilling approach that makes them “disordered.”

Catholics aren’t treating gay men with dignity; they aren’t treating them as worthy men created with liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness in their own way. No, with marriage, it’s the pursuit of happiness the Catholic way — even if you’re not Catholic — or not at all.

That how it was in the Middle Ages, not in 21st century America.

Dean Spencer

Salt Lake City

-letter to The Salt Lake Tribune.

“Quote of the Day” on the Gay Marriage Doorway to Polygamy

. . . [T]he Catholic Church hierarchy, as evidenced by [a recent editorial by Fr. Federico Lombardi, Director of the Vatican Television Centre], continues to deny the distinction between religious rites and public rights. No one is telling the Church what to do within its magisterium (misleading rhetoric about “religious freedom” notwithstanding). I would appreciate it if it would stop telling New York what to do with ours. We’re not changing religious definitions; we’re expanding secular domains of equality. Of course, I understand that such distinctions may fly in the face of a thousand years of Church teaching. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

Ironically, if we followed the Church’s theocratic logic, we’d validate polygamy first, same-sex marriage second. After all, polygamy was a biblical value, practiced by Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon… the list goes on. If religious values (which, according to dogma, are absolutely and objectively true) are to dictate civil laws, presumably we should re-institute polygamy, strip married women of all rights against their husbands, and regard women as chattel to be purchased: all of which are part of the Biblical definition of marriage.

Really, though, what’s most amusing about such reductio ad absurdum arguments is how weirdly dated they already feel. Come on, really? You’re still telling me that same-sex marriage is going to destroy traditional marriage and lead to wild sexual anarchy? As if. The only thing thousands of boring, ordinary gay marriages have changed is the demand for matching suits. The sky just hasn’t fallen, and it’s not going to . . .

– Jay Michaelson “No Father, The Gay Sky Isn’t Falling“

Religion Dispatches

November 19, 2012

(Quoted at the Wild Reed, as “Quote of the Day“)

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"Men and Women Shouldn’t Live Together"

Classic Guiness ad, made but never broadcast, has resurfaced. h/t to Gay Star News

November 10: Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin, Pioneer Lesbian Activists

Del Martin 

 

b. May 5, 1921

d. August 27, 2008

 

Phyllis Lyon 

 

b. November 10, 1924

“Two extraordinary people … that have spent the greater part of a half century … fighting for their right to live the way so many of us, frankly, take for granted.“

 – San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded the first lesbian organization in the United States and have fought for more than 50 years for the rights of lesbians and gays. On June 16, 2008, Martin and Lyon became the first gay couple to be legally married in California.

Martin and Lyon both earned degrees in journalism. While working as journalists in Seattle, the two became romantically involved. The couple relocated to San Francisco and moved in together on Valentine’s Day 1953.

In 1955, finding it hard to develop a social network in San Francisco, Martin, Lyon and a small group of women founded the first lesbian organization, called the Daughters of Bilitis. The name was inspired by Pierre Louys’s “Songs of Bilitis,” a collection of poems celebrating lesbian sexuality.

Though it was intended to be a secret society, Martin and Lyon wanted to make the Daughters of Bilitis more visible. The group began publishing a monthly magazine, called The Ladder, which was the first-ever lesbian publication. As editors of the magazine, they capitalized the word “lesbian” every time it appeared.

In 1964, while fighting to change California sex laws criminalizing homosexuals, the couple joined religious and gay community leaders to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH). This organization was at the forefront of the movement to gain religious support on gay rights issues. Both women served on the founding CRH board of directors.

In 2004, when gay marriage was offered in San Francisco, Martin and Lyon were the first to wed. A California appellate court ruling subsequently invalidated their marriage. Then in May 2008, a California Supreme Court decision provided same-sex couples the right to marry. On June 16, 2008, they were the first same-sex couple married in California. The wedding was officiated by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Martin and Lyon have published two books together, “Lesbian/Woman” (1972) and “Lesbian Love and Liberation” (1973). On their 50th anniversary, the documentary “No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon” premiered. In 2005, the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association inducted Martin and Lyon into the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame for their pioneering work on The Ladder. In 2007, they received the 2007 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Pioneer Award.

Bibliography

“Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon.” (The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives Network).

Kornblum, Janet. “Gay Activists Blaze Trail for half century.”  USA Today. March 4, 2004

“Lesbian Pioneers Wed at San Franciso City Hall.” CNN.  June 17, 2008

Streitmatter, Rodger.  “Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin.”  National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association: LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame.  June 5, 2008

Articles

Gordon, Rachel. “Lesbian Pioneer Activists See Wish Fulfilled.” San Francisco Chronicle. June 16, 2008

Marshall, Carolyn. “Dozens of Gay Couples Marry in San Francisco Ceremonies.” The New York Times. February 13, 2004

McKinley, Jesse. “Same-Sex Marriages Begin in California.” The New York Times. June 17, 2008

Books

Lesbian/Woman (1972)

Lesbian love and liberation (The Yes book of sex) (1973)
Battered Wives (1976)

Other Resources

No Secrets Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon (2003)

Groundspark: Igniting Change Through Film.  Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons’s Wedding Video

Related articles

• Queer Ministry & Reconciliation (queertheology.blogspot.com)

“Jesus and Gay Marriage”

While visiting friends in the Baltimore area, I saw Dan Rodricks’ column “A priest speaks up for same-sex marriage” (Nov. 4). As a Catholic priest myself, I am dismayed by Archbishop William E. Lori’s assertion that “preaching … requires subordination of personal views to the word of God” in response to the Rev. Richard T. Lawrence’s nuanced distinctions. It was precisely Jesus’ personal views that led him to freely and frequently dissent in interpreting Torah Law (word of God). This is what prompted the religious leaders of his day to accuse him of “stirring up the people,” according to Luke 23:5. It is the Reverend Lawrence, not Archbishop Lori, who is being faithful to the dissenting tradition of Jesus by distinguishing between marriage as a sacrament and as a social contract.

Emmett Coyne, Exeter, N.H.

(letters page,  baltimoresun.com)

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