Response to Benedict: Dutch Gay Catholics De-Baptize Themselves

Thousands of Dutch Catholics are researching how they can leave the church in protest at its opposition to gay marriage, according to the creator of a website aimed at helping them find the information.

Tom Roes, whose website allows people to download the documents needed to leave the church, said traffic on ontdopen.nl - "de-baptise.nl" - had soared from about 10 visits a day to more than 10,000 after Pope Benedict's latest denunciation of gay marriage this month.

"Of course it's not possible to be 'de-baptized' because a baptism is an event, but this way people can unsubscribe or de-register themselves as Catholics," Roes told Reuters.

He said he did not know how many visitors to the site actually go ahead and leave the church.

- more at Huffington Post

Related articles

• Deja Vù: Benedict's Escalating War on Marriage
• Catholic, CoE Bishops Diverge in Response to Gay Marriage Proposals. 
• Poll: Gay Marriage Gaining Support, Especially Among Catholics
• Dutch Website Helping Catholics "De-Baptize" Themselves Has Soaring Hits After Benedict's Christmas Vendetta vs. the Gays (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
• More Christmas Statements about Marriage Equality from Catholic Hierarchy: Ten Reflection Points (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)

Episcopalians release same-sex marriage rites

While Catholic bishops in the UK and the US are digging in their heels against marriage equality, the American Episcopal church is (very sensibly) looking ahead, to the inevitable day when they will recognize the need to do away with marriage discrimination in their own church (as some local jurisdictions have already done).  

After several years of study, the Episcopal Church has released a draft of what same-sex marriage rites would look like. An important caveat: these are just drafts, and it will likely be years before any final liturgy is approved for official use across the church.

Episcopalians in states that allow same-sex civil marriage (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and others) already have the option to bless same-sex marriages but there is no formal churchwide liturgy. Same-sex commitment ceremonies are permitted elsewhere in the church at the discretion of the local bishop.

From the church's Office of Public Affairs:

The report’s theological reflection notes that the SCLM [Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music] has reviewed more than 30 years of General Convention’s deliberation on same-gender couples, especially [a] resolution approved in 2000, that identified characteristics the Church expects of couples living in marriage and other lifelong committed relationships: “fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.”

“Such covenantal relationships can reflect God‘s own gracious covenant with us in Christ, manifest the fruits of the Spirit in holiness of life, and model for the whole community the love of neighbor in the practice of forgiveness and reconciliation,”  the report states.

- Religion News Service

Gay Marriage: At London "Catholic Voices" Discussion, Gay Catholics NOT Welcome.

At a Catholic event in London next week,  specifically about Catholics and gay marriage, the people most directly affected - gay Catholics themselves- have been excluded.

In London next week,  "Catholic Voices" is hosting an event to discuss the public communication of the Catholic Church's stance on gay marriage. The advance material for this event made it clear that for security reasons , those wishing to attend needed to RSVP ahead of time, or they would be turned away.

Please note that, due to security policies at Notre Dame, nobody will be admitted who has not RSVP’d to the above email address by the date specified. If you are bringing a guest, you must give us their name and email by then.

-Catholic Voices mailer

However, when I tried to RSVP as instructed, I received a prompt response from the organizer, Austen Ivereigh, stating in effect that I was not welcome. Excluded (and not for security reasons). I have never met Mr Ivereigh, who was presumably responding simply to my name. I soon discovered that two other gay Catholics hoping to attend, had been similarly excluded.

Catholic Voices states that they "began with a single aim: to ensure that Catholics and the Church were well represented in the media when Pope Benedict came to the UK in September 2010". It is clear from this little kerfuffle that it is emphatically not all Catholics and the Church as a whole that they are aiming to represent, but purely and simply the bishops: not "Catholic" Voice, but "His Master's Voice".

And so, we have the curious position that, at a Catholic event specifically about Catholics and gay marriage, the people most directly affected - gay Catholics themselves- are excluded.

This morning, the Guardian has taken up the story:

Gay / Lesbian Church Weddings for Denmark, 2012.

Denmark was the first country in the world to provide near-marriage for same-sex couples, in a system of registered partnerships that were widely described as "gay marriage". The only surprise in the announcement that like their Scandinavian neighbours Sweden Norway and Iceland they are to extend this to full marriage is that it has taken them so long. (Finland also has plans for full marriage equality).

The real interest here, is that this legislation explicitly includes gay church weddings, as there are already in Sweden and Iceland, with the approval of the dominant Lutheran Church in those countries.

Denmark is the latest European nation to announce plans to introduce gay marriage, with same-sex couples to be allowed to marry on Church of Denmark premises.

The Danish coalition Government’s church minister, Manu Sareen, told local newspaper Jyllands-Posten that gay men and women will soon be able to marry when legislation is introduced early next year.

“I look forward to the moment the first homosexual couple steps out of the church. I’ll be standing out there throwing rice,” he said.

“I have many friends who are homosexuals and can’t get married. They love their partners the same way heterosexuals do, but they don’t have the right to live it out in the same way. That’s really problematic.”

Denmark was the first country in the world to allow gay civil partnerships with legislation in 1989. Public polls suggest around 69-percent of the population supports same-sex marriage according, The Copenhagen Post reports.

The first same-sex weddings could take place as early as March, 2012 after the legislation is passed.

Star Observer Online

One of the people who participated in Denmark's first near-marriage ceremonies was a minister of religion. For the most part, European Lutherans do not have a problem with partnered gay or lesbian clergy, and most Danes will take this in their stride. Still, there will be some opposition.

....marriage equality in Denmark isn’t welcome by all with some religious leaders opposing the plans fearing it will cause a spilt in the Church of Denmark. Henrik Hojlund, of the Evangelical Lutheran Network, said gay marriage would be “fatal” for the Church and told the same newspaper “The Church of Denmark is being secularised right up to the alter in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway.”

ATV Today

Related articles

• Methodists to Offer Marriage Celebrations to Same-Sex Families 
• Gay weddings can be performed by military chaplains, Pentagon says
• NY Presbyterian Minister Will Conduct SS Weddings 
• Methodist Clergy: Gay Marriage Revolt Expands to New England 
• Religious Backing for Same-sex Marriage Petition 
• Sergius & Bacchus, 7th October: Patron Saints of Same Sex Lovers? 
• Religious groups call for gay marriages in Scotland
• Bishop vows gay marriage 'will prevail'
• Growing Catholic Acceptance Of Gay Relationships, LGBT Equality

Religious groups call for gay marriages in Scotland

"Five religious groups are joining together to call for same-sex marriage to be allowed in Scotland.

The Unitarians, Quakers, Metropolitan Community Church, Pagan Federation and Liberal Judaism are backing members of the Scottish Youth Parliament in their campaign on the issue.

Ministers are currently holding a consultation on same-sex marriages.

At the moment gay couples can have a civil ceremony but it cannot take place in religious premises."

- BBC News

Separation of church and state in marriage?

"It isn’t exactly a movement — more of a blogosphere hubbub.

In solidarity with his gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, one well-known evangelical pastor in Minneapolis is taking a stand. As long as his state won’t confer upon homosexuals the legal right to marry, Tony Jones won’t sign a marriage license. He will officiate at a Christian ceremony, what he calls the “sacramental” part of marriage. But he refuses to act as an agent of the state.

“Will you join me,” he asked colleagues online last year, “and refuse to legally marry people?”

In July, Jones made his point personally. He remarried, but this time only sacramentally. “I consider my marriage 100 percent valid,” he told me.

-read the full report at  The Washington Post

Related articles

• Australian minister announces lesbian partner is pregnant as gay marriage debate gathers heat - The Washington Post (itsaqueerworld.blogspot.com)
• Religious Backing for Same-sex Marriage Petition (queeringthechurch.com)

Australian clergy speak up for marriage equality

"A group of prominent Australian Christian clergy have put their support for same-sex marriage on the record a day before Christian opponents of marriage equality stage a rally in the Great Hall of Parliament in Canberra.

The Uniting Church, Baptist and Anglican clergy made their statements following the launch of a new Christian campaign for marriage equality, Christians For Gay Marriage, on Friday through which 9,400 Australian Christians have already sent letters to their MPs since its website (www.christians4equality.com.au) was launched."

-Star Online:

DC Bishop's Christian Case for Gay Marriage.

In the ongoing brouhaha in DC over the forthcoming recognition of same gender marriages, with the rather odd position of the Catholic archdiocese that this will somehow force them to either become ineligible for the city’s contracts, or to compromise on their religious principles, it is great to see one bishop arguing from Christian principles and history that the archdiocese is, quite simply, dead wrong. The bishop in question is of the Episcopal  Diocese of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane (pictured below), who has a powerful commentary in the Washington Post.

Bishop John Chane of Washington

Here are some extracts, followed by my commentary:

In Minnesota, Catholics Support Marriage Equality.

Despite the high profile opposition of many of our bishops, we know that Catholics as a group are firm supporters of legal recognition for same  - sex unions, and are more likely than most other Christians to support full equality in civil marriage regulations. Now, it seems that the bishops' vigorous efforts to prevent marriage equality are spurring many Catholics to open disagreement in formal groups publicly supporting same-sex marriage. In Maine last year, Maine Catholics for Marriage Equality was the first such group, spurred into action by Providence Bishop       fund-raising for the Prop 1 campaign to overturn marriage equality in that state. "Catholics For Equality"  took that campaign to a national level earlier this year - "Equally Blessed" is another national initiative, a joint effort by New Ways Ministry, Dignity USA and others.  In Minnesota, just as in Maine, the efforts of Archbishop  Nienstedt to influence state elections to stall same-sex marriage have spurred another local group in support of justice for same sex couples.

Mormon Prop 8 Apology: A Lesson for Minnesota's Catholic Bishops

As the Minnesota bishops prepare for their determined campaign to prevent marriage equality in their state, they would do well to reflect on the experience of the Mormons in California over Prop 8. As is well known, the Mormons, like the institutional Catholic Church, were among the mainstay of the opposition to equality, donating substantial sums in cash and in kind to funding support for the ballot initiative.

Since the vote, there have been numerous indications that the Mormon leaders have begun to recognize the hurt their actions have caused to their own members. (I would be surprised if the Mormons were to make the same mistake again). In the clearest demonstration yet of this change of heart, a senior member of the Church  has apologised to lesbian and gay Mormons of California. In a move that Joanna Brooks at Religion Dispatches correctly describes as historic, the leader of the church in California invited Elder Marlin K Jensen to a meeting to hear the stories of pain and suffering the Church had caused to gay and lesbian Mormons, not just by the support for Prop 8, but by its entire approach to homosexuals and their place in the Church. At the conclusion of this testimony  - Elder Jensen apologized.

The Vatican: Changing Feet

After the Vatican’s initial statement that it would not support the proposed UN declaration on homosexuality was met by world wide protest, they attempted to calm the opposition by explaining that “of course” they opposed the execution of homosexuals and all other “injustice”, but could not support the declaration because it “could” lead to the enforcement of gay marriage. The declaration, of course, says nothing about marriage.