On May 15 the California Supreme Court affirmed the rights of same gender couples to the legal protections and responsibilities of marriage. Not coincidentally, in 1948 it was the California Supreme Court that first extended equal protections to interracial couples — a full sixty years ago, twenty years before Loving v. Virginia declared all miscegenation laws unconstitutional. The ruling will go into effect thirty days after the decision.

Presbyterians from across the country will be arriving for our General Assembly in San Jose amid a sea of deep rejoicing as same gender couples affirm their love and commitment in marriage ceremonies that are legal in the state.

Sadly, these celebrations will, according to the most recent decision of our own court, still be unrecognized in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Beginning in 1978, our church has regularly supported civil equality and protections against discrimination for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) people, but has not extended full equality to its own members. At this year’s Assembly we will have the opportunity to turn this around and make a commitment to fairness and equality by removing discriminatory language from our own constitution.

As a Christian and lesbian, the recognition by my church of a covenantal and sacred relationship is as important as all the hundreds of legal rights and responsibilities gained by marriage equality in the civil society. More and more same gender couples are calling for both equal rights and equal rites. Again and again our clergy are being put in the untenable position of being permitted by the state but constrained by their church from blessing the marriage of same gender couples in their own congregations seeking a church wedding.

The Permanent Judicial Commission of the PC(USA) recently made the final decision on the trial of Jane Spahr for marrying same gender couples. In short they avoided punishing Janie by declaring that no marriages had taken place since the constitution of the Presbyterian Church does not allow marriages of same gender couples. The language of such a decision is an assault on the dignity of same gender loving people and on the integrity of our church.
I am reminded of the line in the marriage ceremony, “What God has joined together, let no one tear asunder.” In her inimitable style, Janie usually renders the line as, “What God has joined together, let nobody mess with!”

Our marriages are blessed by and joined together by God — we know so by the joy that is ours in the unity of love. We know we are blessed by God when we support each other through sickness and in health. We know we are blessed by God through prayerful reading of Scripture and the assent of the congregations we belong to. We know we are blessed by God when we worship as a family in the midst of the community of faith. We know we are blessed because God has joined us together. This is a truth that transcends sexual orientation and gender identity.

In these recent decisions, it is important to distinguish between what is familiar and what is fair. Same gender marriage may be unfamiliar but the love in these marriages is no less love than love between a man and a woman. God sees it. God blesses it. Now the church is being asked to be a witness.
After all, love is love.

LISA LARGES is the minister director of the organization That All May Freely Serve in San Francisco, Calif.

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comment from Robin Ferrell
written by robin, June 19, 2008

Please no flames here - firsts time commenter - I would have to take issue with Ms. Berkley's comparison to pedophiles and polygamists. The relationship between a pedophile and their 'prey' is certainly not one of equality and freedom to enter into an adult relationship. Also, the children who are born and raised in polygamist sects, have no knowledge of what would be considered a freely entered into adult relationship - they only know what they see in their closely segregated communities.

Most of us would agree that divorce is also not part of God's plan for man/woman but we readily accept those who have suffered through a divorce for service in our congregations, and unless you've gone through one you have no idea of what suffering goes along with reaching that decision.

It has always amazed me that people (Christian and not) can have such an aversion to what they imagine a GLB&T couple's relations must be BUT they can't go from that and say, 'wait, since I have such a problem with this, there must be something different going on with them' - a difference that maybe God didn't wish for his children in much the same way that I don't think God wishes for his children to suffer physical or mental disabilities but a true difference nevertheless. Maybe it's not the 'norm' but there it is and I have gay friends who are joyfully serving in non-presbyterian churches without having to sneak around about who they are.

What is so scary about believing that two people of the same sex could have a loving, monogamous relationship AND that they could serve God and their church AND that God could bless that relationship and their service. I am not GLB or T, but I have no reason to believe that God doesn't love them just like he loves me or that their service is not every bit as blessed.

Comment by Deborah Milam Berkley
written by The Presbyterian Outlook, May 31, 2008

Dear Editor:

In her Presbyterian Outlook guest viewpoint of May 28, Lisa Larges writes this about homosexual "marriages":


Our marriages are blessed by and joined together by God — we know so by the joy that is ours in the unity of love. We know we are blessed by God when we support each other through sickness and in health. We know we are blessed by God through prayerful reading of Scripture and the assent of the congregations we belong to. We know we are blessed by God when we worship as a family in the midst of the community of faith. We know we are blessed because God has joined us together. This is a truth that transcends sexual orientation and gender identity.


The arguments that Larges gives here for her claim that homosexual unions are marriages that are blessed by God are all based upon experience. (The one Scriptural argument that Larges mentions, "prayerful reading of Scripture", does not hold weight against the solid Biblical scholarship on this issue that has been done by Robert Gagnon.)

We have heard similar experience-based claims made before. The problem with this type of claim is that it can easily be made for many other types of relationship. It would be very easy for a different group of people, such as pedophiles or polygamists, instead of GLBT people, to make the same claims. These other groups of people could also tell us about their joy in the unity of their love, and their support for each other through sickness and health; they could tell how they believe that God has joined them together, and perhaps they might even have congregations that assent to their unions. Would we then want to say that their unions were blessed by God?

For that matter, those of us who believe that sexual activity is reserved for marriage between one man and one woman could point to our experience of prayerful reading of Scripture and the assent of our congregations and of the church throughout the ages, in support of this doctrine. Presumably Larges would not wish to accept our experience in this matter.

Experience, then, is not alone a convincing argument for the validity of a claim that God has or has not blessed a particular type of sexual union. In the realm of Christian doctrine and church standards, we need Scriptural support in order to know what God approves and what God does not approve.

As a side note, I would like to point out that in her final paragraph, Larges makes the error of assuming that those who disagree with her are merely ignorant and/or fearful of the unfamiliar. It is condescending and even insulting to assume that the belief that sex is reserved for marriage between one man and one woman is based merely upon that being a familiar situation, and that the concept of fairness in this situation has not occurred to them.

Deborah Milam Berkley
Member, First Pres. Church of Bellevue (WA)