c. 2008 Religion News Service

Mass. moves to lift more restrictions on gay marriage

BOSTON (RNS) The Massachusetts Senate on Tuesday (July 15) voted to repeal a 1913 law used most recently to prevent gay couples from other states from marrying here.

The Senate on a voice vote approved a bill to abolish the law, which forbids clerks from issuing marriage licenses to out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be recognized in their home state.

State Sen. Mark C. W. Montigny, a Democrat, said the law is immoral. “This is a law contrived in shame and it exists in shame,” he said on the Senate floor.

Critics said the law was approved nearly a century ago as a way to block inter-racial marriages, and was dusted off by former Gov. Mitt Romney to restrict marriage rights for out-of-state gay couples.

The bill now moves to the state House of Representatives. Gov. Deval L. Patrick and Democratic leaders in the House also support repealing the 1913 law.

Massachusetts and California are the only two states where gay marriage is legal, but California lacks a residency requirement for couples.

About 10,000 gay couples have married in Massachusetts since the state began issuing licenses in May 2004 under a ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court. In 2006, the same court upheld the 1913 law.

Kristian M. Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute in Woburn, condemned the Senate vote. Mineau said he was disappointed and would lobby House members to keep the law.

“It’s Massachusetts attempting to force its social experiment on other states in total defiance of the right of other states to define marriage,” Mineau said.

But Marc E. Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, called the vote a victory. “The Senate has spoken with one unified voice that discrimination is wrong,” Solomon said. “It shows there is a real commitment to fairness and equality in the commonwealth.”

The state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development issued a report that said 21,321 same-sex couples from New York alone would travel to Massachusetts to marry. New York Gov. David Paterson has directed state agencies to recognize the unions of gay couples married elsewhere.

The report said the state would benefit from wedding and tourism spending, marriage license fees and a jump in sales and other tax revenues. A total of 330 new jobs would be created in the state over three years, the report said.

_ Dan Ring

Survey suggests `unchurched’ are a fluid group

(RNS) A new survey shows that “unchurched” Americans may be worshipping more, and “churched” Americans worshipping less, than many people might think.

Numerous surveys track trends among “unchurched” Americans, but what does “unchurched” really mean? Does it mean never attending religious services, not attending regularly, or to simply be unaffiliated with a particular congregation?

Phoenix, Ariz.-based Ellison Research said the most common definitions “often don’t tell a complete story about how Americans attend religious worship services.”

The Ellison survey, released Monday (July 14), showed that 40 percent of the “unchurched” do not entirely stay away from worship services, and 37 percent of “churched” Americans do not make it to religious services every week, even though they consider themselves regular attenders.

“There’s often an assumption that people either do attend worship services or they don’t,” said Ellison President Ron Sellers. “But what we find in this study is that one out of every five Americans is attending worship services at least occasionally during the year, even though they are not regularly involved.”

Definitions of “unchurched” used by leading researchers are typically based on yes/no questions of membership at a house of worship, service attendance in the last month, or attendance in the last six months apart from holidays, weddings and funerals.

The Ellison study, however, prides itself in more nuanced questions about frequency of worship attendance for churches, mosques, and synagogues.

In a survey of more than 1,000 adults, 29 percent of Americans do not attend religious services at all; 10 percent attend only on religious holidays; 9 percent attend occasionally; 19 percent attend between one and three times a month; and 33 percent attend once a week or more.

“It is not our intent to say that anything in the research world is wrong, but the `unchurched’ is a huge mass of people,” Sellers said. “Some people out there may not regularly attend services, but they do regularly attend every Easter and every Christmas.”

The study also analyzed family history of attendance and parental religious involvement. The study estimates that 43 million adults typically categorized as “unchurched” will visit a church or place of worship at some point during the year, and suggested that this should be the focus of outreach for congregations.

_ Ashly McGlone

Pastor launches `Gossip Free’ campaign

(RNS) A Michigan pastor is urging people to go “Gossip Free” for at least eight days starting on 8-8-08, but said it’s never too early to stop listening to or sharing idle chatter at home, work or especially church.

Pastor Kevin Hester of Sanctuary Baptist Church in Coloma, Mich., said “even though gossip is commonly accepted by people and churches, God takes it seriously. It’s right next to murder in the Bible.”

Hester argues in his pocket-size book, “Gossip Free? The High Cost of Low Talk” that “gossip has caused more wars, broken up more homes, ruined more businesses, split more churches and destroyed more lives than anything else throughout human history.”

Hester has distributed between 1,000 and 2,000 white “gossipfree.org” bracelets with his book, and is asking people to abstain from gossip for eight days, starting next month.

“Eight is the number in the Bible for `new beginnings.’ Most familiar is the story of the flood and God starting over with eight people,” Hester said.

The campaign is similar to one launched in 2006 by Will Bowen, a pastor in Kansas City, Mo., who launched a “Complaint Free” campaign and eventually got more than 5 million people to join him.

Rebekah Trosper, a Wal-Mart department manager in Benton Harbor, Mich., and a member of Hester’s congregation, publicized the campaign at work. More than 75 employees in her store are now wearing gossip-free bracelets.

“Wal-Mart is a big company and is always under a lot if gossip. I’ve seen a change in the associates. It makes you stop and think,” Trosper said. “Gossip affects everyone in the world but you can make a difference if you try.”

_ Ashly McGlone

Quote of the Day: Anheuser-Busch employee Dave Liszewski

(RNS) “The good Lord was sold out for 30 pieces of silver. We were sold out for $70 a share.”

_ Dave Liszewski, who has worked at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis for 30 years, expressing his anger over the company’s sale to a Belgian company. He was quoted by The New York Times.

KRE/RB END RNS