c. 2004 Religion News Service

NEEDHAM, Mass. _ For the 15 pastors who came here on May 7 to learn “the nuts and bolts of planning a gay wedding,” the first lesson was clear: Expect wedding dynamics unlike any you’ve ever seen.

The Rev. Heike Werder listed the novel but likely possibilities: You might have a man who wants to be called “the bride.” You might do premarital counseling with a couple who’ve been together 50 years. Or you might have to arrange for a police detail to keep angry protesters at bay.

“Not many of us had anticipated that (gay weddings) would ever be an option,” said the Rev. Susan Cartmell, senior minister at Needham Congregational Church. “But now they are, so we’re doing them.”

As Massachusetts prepares to make history Monday (May 17) by solemnizing America’s first legal gay marriages, religious communities across the state are preparing pastoral responses to the new civil reality. For a few congregations, the short-term challenge is finding time to meet an avalanche of gay wedding requests. The rest meanwhile are gearing up for a long haul of explaining face-to-face why the state can give its blessing but the church, synagogue and mosque cannot.

Yet no matter where a congregation stands on gay marriage, one factor holds across the board: May 17 is ushering in a new era for marriage-related ministry and a lot of confusion to go with it.

“With all the jockeying at the Statehouse, we don’t know exactly what May 17 will bring,” said the Rev. Nancy Taylor, president of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the state’s largest Protestant denomination. “There’s so much uncertainty. A lot of people in the churches are saying, `I’ll wait to weigh in when they’ve figured this out.”’

In accordance with a 4-3 vote of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November, town clerks must issue marriage licenses to gay couples after May 17. Scandalized state lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage and create civil unions, but the proposal requires further action and could not take effect until 2006 at the earliest.

Hundreds of gay couples are consequently hearing wedding bells, but with one catch: Most churches won’t be ringing them for gay weddings.

Leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, which counts about half of the state’s 6 million residents as Catholics, have exhorted all priests to be prophetic defenders of traditional marriage. What’s more, 15 of the 16 denominations represented at the Massachusetts Council of Churches are refusing to marry gay couples after the law changes. Among council members, only the United Church of Christ will permit its clergy to officiate at gay weddings, and only about 10 percent of its 427 parishes in Massachusetts have declared themselves “open and affirming” toward homosexuals.

Those few congregations that plan to offer a blessing in God’s name, however, are preparing to do so in some cases with much fanfare. At Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters, which overlooks the embattled Massachusetts Statehouse, denomination President William Sinkford will preside on Monday (May 17) at the wedding of two women who successfully sued for the right to marry, Julie and Hillary Goodridge.

Three days later on May 20, after a mandatory waiting period has elapsed, Arlington Street Church in Boston will bless one gay marriage every 20 minutes from morning to night.

Meanwhile, pastors in crash courses are quickly covering everything from how to manage the kissing moment to how to work with the “church ladies,” those who delight in arranging flowers for every wedding but never planned to see two men or two women coming down the aisle.

In the vast majority of Massachusetts congregations, gay marriage will be a topic of spirited discussion rather than a Saturday afternoon reality. In Methodist churches, for instance, pastors received notice from their General Assembly this month that officiating at a same-sex union ceremony would constitute a “chargeable offense,” which could lead to a loss of ordained standing.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that policy challenged” by a pastor’s intentional disobedience, said Mike Hickcox, spokesman for the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. “It’s after people come back from General Assembly that they decide what they’re going to do with the decisions made there.”

But not every pastor who supports marriage for gays is willing at this point to become a test case.

“It feels to me like they’re gearing up for an inquisition,” said the the Rev. Steve Notis, pastor of Old South Methodist Church in Reading, Mass., and signatory to the United Methodist Active Clergy Statement of Support for Gay Marriage. “I won’t be doing those services if I want to keep my job, and I do. … But it saddens me that we can’t.”

In less centralized denominations, where local churches make their own policies, practices will vary from congregation to congregation. In the United Church of Christ, for instance, Taylor surveyed 50 pastors at a recent meeting to find 10 who plan to marry gays, 15 who said they definitely will not, and 25 who chose not to respond.

What’s more, Taylor said, the religious landscape is unpredictable. One well-known conservative church, for instance, surprised her by requesting gay marriage resources because “it’s going to be the law, and this church follows the law.”

Similarly in Reform Judaism, each congregation will craft its own policy. Though members of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston voted 51 to 5 in support of civil gay marriage, they made clear that religious marriage is another matter altogether.

Whether any Jewish congregations will actually perform gay marriage ceremonies is at this point unknown. What is certain, however, is that congregations of many stripes will be discussing the nature of marriage with renewed intensity long after May 17.

“Some see this as a human rights issue and a religious liberty issue,” said the Rev. Robert B. Wallace, interim executive minister of American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts. “But there are also many people concerned with the direction the state is taking. There is tension, and there will be a variety of responses.”

DEA/PH END MACDONALD