Sunday's Church Service
Church was really neat yesterday, because the lesbian minister was in charge. Our interim minister is gone, and the new minister does not start until mid-May. We had a guest preacher who became a Presbyterian minister because the Presbyterian Church had come out against apartheid. He was very supportive of our church being a More Light congregation. The lesbian minister was the liturgist. Also, I took communion from her. I had never taken communion from a lesbian minister before. This was a very emotional experience for me, and I was in tears. I was just generally emotional from being in church and having a lesbian minister directing us. After the service, she was in charge of all the honchos who were there, and it was so cool to see her in a leadership position. I’m so proud of my church for standing up for justice, using the talents of all types of people equally, and not oppressing one group of people.
Another emotional moment for me was when she had the whole congregation praying for Rev. Janie Spahr. Rev. Spahr is also a lesbian minister and she is from the Pittsburgh area originally. She came to preach at the Noe Valley Presbyterian Church in San Francisco when I lived there. The whole church went down and marched in the Gay Pride Parade with her. My cousin, Richard Sharpnack, who was a gay Presbyterian and gay father activist, also marched with us. She is in trouble now with the Presbyterian Church for officiating at a same-sex wedding in Canada. In Canada, it is legal for two persons of the same gender to marry. She was charged in November for violating the provisions of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church. The evidence was the marriage certificate for the two men, which she had signed. The men wanted her to officiate at their wedding because they did not want their marriage to be legally or religiously regarded as second class.
Rev. Spahr chose to take the case to trial rather than to plead guilty and accept a reprimand. At a March 31 pretrial conference, a 120-day continuance was agreed to by the prosecution and defense in order to work out a more constructive way of handling the matter. (Information from www.tamfs.org.)
Another emotional moment for me was when she had the whole congregation praying for Rev. Janie Spahr. Rev. Spahr is also a lesbian minister and she is from the Pittsburgh area originally. She came to preach at the Noe Valley Presbyterian Church in San Francisco when I lived there. The whole church went down and marched in the Gay Pride Parade with her. My cousin, Richard Sharpnack, who was a gay Presbyterian and gay father activist, also marched with us. She is in trouble now with the Presbyterian Church for officiating at a same-sex wedding in Canada. In Canada, it is legal for two persons of the same gender to marry. She was charged in November for violating the provisions of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church. The evidence was the marriage certificate for the two men, which she had signed. The men wanted her to officiate at their wedding because they did not want their marriage to be legally or religiously regarded as second class.
Rev. Spahr chose to take the case to trial rather than to plead guilty and accept a reprimand. At a March 31 pretrial conference, a 120-day continuance was agreed to by the prosecution and defense in order to work out a more constructive way of handling the matter. (Information from www.tamfs.org.)
posted by Theodosia @ 3:21 AM
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