United Church of Christ members applaud gay-friendly resolution.
Abolition. Women's Suffrage. Civil Rights. These are just a few of the movements in which the United Church of Christ has historically been involved.
Now, the church-which ordained an openly gay minister in the 1970s-has become the first mainline Christian denomination to pass a resolution calling for equal access to marriage regardless of a couple's gender makeup. UCC made the move last week, which has caused some branches of the church to threaten to break away. The United Church of Christ in Santa Fe, however, welcomes the resolution.
"This type of statement that the UCC made will help America to be a more equal culture of honoring the full dignity of all human beings as religious people, as people of faith, that God loves all," says Alissa Marquis, president of the board of UCC in Santa Fe. "As a Christian, I know that Jesus welcomed all people to his table. All people get to enjoy God's gifts and especially oppressed people."
Because in 1994 the congregation of the Santa Fe UCC voted to adopt an "open and affirming" policy with regards to gay couples and individuals alike, Marquis says that she, a lesbian, has been allowed to take on a leadership role in the church.
The Rev. Talitha Arnold, head of Santa Fe UCC, says under her leadership the church has striven to be inclusive of gays and lesbians. The church announces the anniversaries of unions involving gay couples "the same way we do for straight couples," she says. "We have gays and lesbians who've been together for 25, 45 years in as much a committed relationship as anyone else."
Arnold and Marquis expect members to welcome the resolution with the same amount of enthusiasm as they do. Angelina Hicks, a 15-year-old church member, is a case in point. While Hicks says she believes the Bible considers marriage to be between a man and a woman, she also feels the resolution "is really great. I support gays and lesbians, and I'm glad that I found a church that supports them as well."
Arnold acknowledges UCC members in other locales might not be as welcoming of the resolution as the Santa Fe congregation. Ordained by UCC in 1980, Arnold also has been part of the leadership at church branches in New England and Arizona. "I think it's much easier to be open and affirming in Santa Fe, New Mexico than in other parts of the country," she says.
Branches of the United Church of Christ throughout the nation have threatened to part from the church as a result of the resolution. The resolution does not require UCC ministers to marry gays and lesbians but expresses the UCC's desire that the government grant gays and lesbians the same rights to marriage as heterosexuals. The Rev. Brian Taylor, an Episcopalian pastor who is part of the New Mexico Religious Alliance for Inclusion and Non-Discrimination, says, "The ones who are most strongly against support for gays and lesbians are those who take the Bible more literally." As for his organization, "We have varying practices within our own church traditions," he says. "However that translates we're calling for support of same-gender relationships both within the church and on a civil level." According to Taylor, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Reformed Jews all support same-sex partnerships but have yet to do so in as official a manner as the United Church of Christ. "Episcopalians-we're unofficially doing same-sex blessings," he says. "We haven't officially approved a rite for that purpose, but we did approve an ordination of a gay bishop." That ordination caused enormous tension in the church, particularly from branches outside of the United States. "Any time a church takes a stand there will be some churches that break away," Arnold says. "Unfortunately, that has been an aspect of the Christian church since the very beginning."
Taylor believes tensions due to the UCC's resolution have less to do with sexual orientation than with interpretation of the Bible. "It's about whether or not we're going to take a literal approach to the Bible when it suits conclusions that we already have," he says.
For Mary Ellen Capek, Equality New Mexico Foundation chairwoman, literal interpretation of the Bible within the Methodist denomination resulted in her feeling alienated and hurt by the church. Christianity's rejection of homosexuals "is extraordinarily painful," she says. "It's done enormous damage to individuals and to families. Any time people of faith use their faith as a club to beat up other people it's a distortion of faith. How dare they say, 'We love you, but we don't want you to be able to marry.' I'm sorry-it's plain ol' ordinary discrimination." Capek says UCC's resolution brought tears to her eyes. She views it as an "amazing leap forward." But she adds somberly, "I doubt Methodists would follow. They have been taken over by right-wing fanatics."
Arnold, however, believes with time even more conservative denominations of Christianity will welcome marriage among gays and lesbians. She, like Taylor, likens the current resistance to gay marriage to historical resistance of divorce. "Thirty years ago the Bible was being used to condemn people who had been divorced," she says. "You don't hear anything about that anymore."
