Some clergy think churches should divorce themselves from the wedding business.

The controversy over same-sex marriage – along with a growing sense that many couples who marry in churches never return – has prompted faith leaders to say it's time to reconsider how California couples tie the knot.

After the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California began encouraging all couples to marry outside the church.

"I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service, and then being blessed in the Episcopal Church," Bishop Marc Handley Andrus wrote his clergy June 9. ...

George Raya is a member of Integrity, the Episcopal Church's support group
for gays and lesbians. "I heard about it last week," he said. "To me, it's (the church's) way of getting around treating us equally. As soon as we can get married, they want us to get blessed? A lot of us would like to get married in church."

The Episcopal Church does not allow same-sex marriages.

posted by Imapp Staff at 6:46 PM | link

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