The Boston Globe reports that a decision by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III has opened the door for Episcopal priests in Massachusetts to perform marriages for gay and lesbian couples:

“The time has come,’’ Shaw said in a telephone interview. “It’s time for us to offer to gay and lesbian people the same sacrament of fidelity that we offer to the heterosexual world.’’

Shaw, a longtime supporter of gay rights and same-sex marriage, had previously cited the Episcopal Church’s canons and prayer book in barring local priests from officiating at same-sex marriages, even after such unions became legal in Massachusetts in 2004.

But this month, clergy and laypeople at a diocesan convention endorsed a resolution expressing hope that Shaw would allow clergy to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples. They cited legislation approved at the Episcopal Church’s general convention last summer declaring that “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same- gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church.’’

Shaw said his diocese includes “a significant number of gay and lesbian clergy who are in partnerships,’’ and that “many of our parishes have significant numbers of gay and lesbian people.’’

Massachusetts becomes the third state where Episcopal priests are allowed to perform marriages, following the diocese of Iowa and Vermont, which also perform same-sex weddings.

Susan Young is a teacher, author and active community member talks about her support for her openly gay son, and how laws should afford him the right to marry just as any other couple would:

We have a gay son. He has a distinct masculine identity, dark two-day unshaven scruff.  He loves fast cars. He drinks Starbucks. He argues vociferously. He can act bull-headed, and bite like a scorpion. Like the rest of us, he works, plays, sleeps and eats. He calls almost daily and I end each conversation, “I love you, hon.”

He echoes, “Love you, too.”

If my son ever loves a man enough to want to be a husband, I’ll take their commitment as one more strand to strengthen the institution of marriage.  How could their bond possibility destroy the one I have with his father? I don’t get that. And to answer Zac’s kindergarten question, “Can boys marry boys?”

Why not? 

More love in the world.

Click here to read the rest of Young’s article.

As the District of Columbia City Council and Mayor are expected to pass a law affording gay and lesbian couples equal access to civil marriage, the Catholic Church has made its position against the new law and has insisted that it could suspend social services.

In a surprisingly bold and seemingly unbiblical move, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to discontinue its social support for nearly 70,000 people — including a third of Washington’s homeless — because of its opposition to a proposed same-sex marriage bill.

Under the proposed bill, according to a story by Post reporters Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein, religious organizations would not be required to perform same-sex weddings, “but they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.”

Apparently, the archdiocese is concerned that it could be forced, for example, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, open adoptions to same-sex couples, or rent a church hall to gay and lesbian groups. “If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

And withdrawing support for the poor and the hungry isn’t a problem?

It gets complicated anytime church and state work together to provide services for people, especially when a mix of public and private funds and facilities is involved. In this case, for example, the church manages a number of city-owned homeless shelters.

The use of public funds and facilities should be governed by secular laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination laws. But churches and other non-profit religious organizations are exempt from many such laws, because of church-state separation.

Read more in the Washington Post.

So, often the debate about same-sex marriage claims to be one that has religion and the faith community one side and the LGBT community on the other. Leaders of faith all across the country are debunking that myth and explaining how their faith and belief in the scriptures leaders to support same-sex marriage. Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, a Baptist minister, and Robert M. Hardies, a Unitarian minster, detail in the The Washington Post detail how their belief in fight injustice is their guide to support same-sex marriage.

Our solidarity exposes two of the myths perpetuated by opponents of marriage equality and by the media. Let’s call these myths “God vs. gay” and “black vs. white.”

Opponents of marriage equality would like us to believe that one cannot be both pro-God and pro-gay. Yet we lead a coalition of nearly 200 D.C. clergy who support marriage equality precisely because of our commitment to God’s inclusive love and justice. Our clergy are black, white, Latino and from every ward in the District. We are Baptists and Jews, Catholics and Methodists, who have worked side by side for years on issues ranging from peace to affordable housing, and who now stand together again to raise a faithful voice for justice. Let us be clear: God vs. gay is a myth we reject. God vs. injustice is a truth we affirm.

Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have tried to use this issue to divide our communities along racial lines, and the press often plays into their hands. The gay community is repeatedly characterized as a group of well-to-do white folks, while all people of color are portrayed as heterosexuals who oppose gay marriage. This is the myth of “black vs. white.” To suggest that the struggle for marriage equality in Washington affects only a small number of white people from Dupont Circle is an affront to the rich diversity of the District’s gay and lesbian community, and it erases the lives of thousands of gay and lesbian people of color, some of whom are members of our churches.

The Washington Post reports that the Rev. Eric Lee, Los Angeles president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Los Angeles chapter has come to Washington, DC to support local efforts to establish full marriage equality.  Lee, who also opposed Proposition 8 in California, intewnds to focus on reaching out to the African-American community in the nation’s capital.

“It is clear to me that this is a civil rights issue,” Lee said in an interview. “The challenge, however, particularly for the African-American community, is how to frame it as to not cause the clergy to believe they are compromising their Christian belief systems.”

But Lee, whose trip is sponsored by International Federation of Black Prides and the Courage Campaign, said he thinks he can help gay rights activists make inroads with African-Americans through “reasonable dialogue.”

“I am not of the LGBT community, so there is no pushback like I am trying to force it on them,” Lee said. “I am just trying to reason with them…. I think there is a way that people of faith can affirm the dignity of everyone’s humanity without compromising your Christian or religious principles.”

The Post’s Robert McCartney recently published an article underlying the racial divide over marriage equality, noting that while whites in the District backed the issue 8 to 1, African Americans were against it 48 percent to 34 percent. The divide over the subject underlines the importance of work by leaders such as Lee to work to achieve full equality for all couples regardless of their sexual orientation.