Faith Leaders Grapple With California Court Ruling

Uncertainty has spread across many corners of the religious landscape in California in the wake of last week's state Supreme Court decision ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in that state.

This article in the LA Times speaks to that uncertainty and also highlights the wide range of reactions across different denominations. Even those who strongly support the ruling are unclear about the ramifications going forward:

The 4-3 ruling, which held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, has prompted conservative and liberal congregations alike to discuss whether gay and lesbian members will be allowed to wed in their churches, synagogues and temples.

"These are the kinds of issues every religion has to grapple with," said James A. Donahue, president of the Graduate Theological Union, a Berkeley-based consortium of theological schools. "How do you factor in the role of contemporary human rights, civil rights, the data about homosexuality" with "core traditions and beliefs?"

.....at All Saints Episcopal Church, the Rev. Susan Russell led a between-services forum on the religious, legal and political ramifications of the court's decision.

"The justices have ruled in favor of the sanctity of marriage and against bigotry," Russell declared, as the audience cheered. "This is good news for all Californians.

"But even though All Saints has been blessing same-sex unions for more than 15 years, the ruling unleashed a wave of uncertainty.

"At this point in the Episcopal Church, our prayer book still defines marriage between a man and a woman," Russell said in an interview. "There's some question about whether we can, within the canons of our church, extend the sacrament to same-gender couples.

"The decision raises questions, too, about what All Saints' blessing ceremonies mean anymore, Russell said. Should couples who have had such ceremonies get married too? Will the civil steps suffice? Or should they go through another church ritual? And what kinds of ceremonies will All Saints provide as it moves forward?

The questions are personal for Russell, who celebrated her union with her partner in an official blessing ceremony two years ago. Russell said she and her partner haven't begun discussing what the new ruling will mean for them. As for her church, she said, "I'm glad we have 30 days to think it through."

William McKinney, president of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and a professor of American religion there, said the ruling was applauded on his campus, which is a multidenominational, theologically liberal Christian seminary.

Yet he said he felt an element of trepidation as well.

"We're celebrating it on the one hand," McKinney said, noting that San Francisco's 2004 decision allowing same-sex weddings had given many people, both gay and straight, new appreciation for the powerful symbolism of marriage.

"On the other hand, though, this sets us up for another round of the culture wars," he said. "As a straight, married man, I feel for my gay friends whose private life is once again going to be the subject of public debate."

This item from the Christian Post (you can tell the right wing news sources because they use quotations around same-sex "marriage") points out how this decision could have a much greater impact nationwide than the ruling in Massachusetts in 2004:

In a study last December – months before the California Supreme Court began hearing the legal arguments for and against gay “marriage – a study done by the University of California-Davis' Law Review revealed California’s Supreme Court as the most influential in the nation. According to the study, a total of 1,260 decisions made by the California high court have been mimicked and followed by other states, a figure higher than any other state in the union.

Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at the Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, Calif., emphasized that the California high court’s decision on gay “marriage” would have far greater impact than the similar decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts to legalize gay “marriage” in 2004.

“The way the Massachusetts court had interpreted its state law, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts was not available to non-residents,” Kmiec explained, according to Cybercast News Service.

"In California, there's no waiting period, there's no residency requirement, and so yesterday's ruling doesn't just affect a single state with a very large population," he added.

"One of the principal effects of the California decision will be to create large numbers of same-sex marriages that will not only reside in California, but will migrate across the country," he continued. The migration of same-sex couples to other states could then spur the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide, he explained.

Keep checking back here for more important updates and analysis on how the faith communities on both sides of this issue proceed.