c. 2008 Religion News Service

Calif. Episcopal church agrees to marry gay couples

(RNS) A prominent liberal Episcopal church in Pasadena, Calif., says it will allow gay and lesbian couples to marry after the state’s Supreme Court opened civil marriage to same-sex couples starting next month.

The move by All Saints Episcopal Church is likely to fan tensions within the U.S. church and the wider Anglican Communion as Anglican bishops head to England this summer for a high-stakes, once-a-decade summit.

The vestry, or elected leadership, of All Saints voted unanimously Thursday (May 22) to “treat all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage equally.” The church currently blesses same-sex relationships.

“As a priest and pastor, I anticipate with great joy strengthening our support of the sanctity of marriage as I marry both gay and straight members and thus more fully live out my ordination vows to nourish all people from the goodness of God’s grace,” said the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr., the church’s pastor.

Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno, a supporter of gay marriage who welcomed the court’s ruling on May 15, could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if other California parishes would allow same-sex couples to wed.

The Episcopal Church defines marriage between a man and a woman, although some bishops allow same-sex blessings (but not marriages) in their dioceses. A spokeswoman for Episcopal Church headquarters in New York declined to comment.

As All Saints moved to embrace the California court’s May 15 decision, conservatives filed a petition to stay the ruling until Golden State voters are able to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

At the same time, U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., said he would reintroduce a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. That proposal had effectively died when Democrats won control of Congress in 2006.

In Massachusetts, the only other state to recognize same-sex marriage, Episcopal Bishop Thomas Shaw has told his priests they may bless those relationships but not officiate in same-sex civil marriages.

And in Canada, which also allows gay marriage, the Anglican Church is studying its internal laws that define marriage as between a man and a woman, and at least three dioceses have asked their bishops to grant permission for priests to perform same-sex weddings.

This is not the first time All Saints has made headlines. Earlier this year, the IRS cleared the parish on charges of improper politicking stemming from a sermon on the eve of the 2004 presidential election.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

McCain rejects second minister’s endorsement

(RNS) Sen. John McCain has rejected the endorsement of Ohio megachurch pastor Rod Parsley for comments that called Islam a violent religion bent on world domination.

McCain, R-Ariz., rejected the support of Parsley, the senior pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, almost immediately after McCain renounced an earlier endorsement by Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, who had made controversial comments about Catholics and Jews.

“I believe there is no place for that kind of dialogue in America, and I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn’t endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement,” McCain said Thursday (May 22) in a statement about Parsley reported by ABC News.

That network posted video of some of Parsley’s statements on its Web site.

“Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world,” Parsley says on the video.

Parsley spokesman Gene Pierce did not have an immediate comment on Friday, but on Thursday sent ABC News a statement saying that Parsley’s remarks “were in response to militant Islamic leaders’ repeated pledges to kill Americans and destroy the United States and Western culture and democracies.”

In his 2005 book, “Silent No More,” Parsley included a chapter on Islam titled, “Islam: The Deception of Allah.”

“The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe Sept. 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore,” wrote Parsley, who is the founder of the Center for Moral Clarity.

Later in the chapter, he added: “As I scan the world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment.”

On Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomed McCain’s rejection of Parsley’s endorsement.

“Senator McCain’s decision to reject Parsley’s vile speech put the pastor’s bigotry back on the political sideline where it belongs,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR’s national legislative director.

_ Adelle M. Banks

British Catholics say abortion fight not over

LONDON (RNS) The British government’s refusal to reduce the time limit for abortions from the present 24 weeks has offended people of “all faiths and none,” but the fight will continue, says the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the archbishop of Westminster, insisted in an article for London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on Friday (May 23) that “the issue will not go away” and that Britain’s 200,000 annual abortions “is too many.”

Britain’s House of Commons this week rejected demands from Murphy-O’Connor and other anti-abortion activists to cut the time limit for abortions from 24 to 22 weeks.

Despite the vote, the cardinal said the demands for a reduction will continue because “many people are left deeply uneasy and perplexed, profoundly worried about the direction we are now taking.”

Many religious groups were also angered by the Parliament’s approval of the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos in stem cell research in the quest for cures for a range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

David Muir, a spokesman for the Protestant Evangelical Alliance, angrily suggested that “just because science can do something doesn’t mean that it should.”

_ Al Webb

Quote of the Day: Gospel Music Association President John Styll

(RNS) “He talks about his kids all the time. That’s his life. His kids are more important to him than music, that’s for sure.”

_ Gospel Music Association President John Styll, speaking about contemporary Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman, whose youngest child, Maria, died Wednesday (May 21) after being struck by a car driven by her older brother in the family’s driveway in Williamson County, Tenn. He was quoted by The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.

KRE DS END RNS