Date: 07-02-2015
SOME CHURCHES WILL ALLOW MARRIAGES, SOME WON’T; LOUISA/LAWRENCE CO. CHURCHES SAY ‘NO’
Gay and lesbians are welcome into Georgetown’s churches to worship but not to wed, several local pastors said this week.
“There’s no reason why we should” allow same-sex marriage ceremonies at Trinity Assembly of God, Pastor Dan Estes said.
Meanwhile, across town at First United Methodist Church, Pastor Greg Gallaher said the UMC’s “Book of Discipline” clearly bans gays from serving in the pulpit. UMC pastors also are prohibited from performing marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, and UMC buildings also cannot be used.
“We are welcoming of all persons including gays and lesbians. We are very welcoming,” Gallaher said.
The issue of where same-sex couples can get married became an issue for local church leaders last Friday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled bans on gay marriage — like Kentucky’s decade-old constitutional amendment — violate the U.S. Constitution.
In Louisa, First Baptist Church pastor Chuck Price was unequivical in his answer to the question of gay marriage in his church.
“Mark, I will give the same answer your dad would have given when he was the pastor of our church back in the day. No, we will not be performing same sex marriages here at Louisa First Baptist.”
Price was one of several local pastors contacted by The Lazer including Rick May, Kate Dilley, and Dan Smith but so far, he is the only one who has responded. May said he will send his statement today and Youth Pastor Mitch Castle said he will get word to Smith and ask for an answer.
Any pastor who would like to is encouraged to send their statement on the subkect to: markgrayson@me. com.
States must allow same-sex marriages within their borders and recognize such marriages performed in other states, the High Court decided on a 5-4 vote.
But the Court majority’s decision also recognized that no religious organization or clergy member could be required to perform the marriage rites.
“The sky is not falling — and SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the United States) doesn’t hold up the sky anyway,” Estes said about the ruling.
Still, Estes said, the growing cultural acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage across the nation worries him.
“My thoughts and greater concerns are the spiritual conditions of too many churches today. There is no life change. The scriptures are clear concerning homosexuality. But in some churches, immoral behavior is embraced rather than challenged,” Estes said.
Rev. Pamela Rucker, interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church, said the church’s session, or local governing body, likely will discuss its position when it meets later this month.
“Right now, I would rather not comment on this,” she said.
First Presbyterian is a member of the Presbyterian Church USA, which voted earlier this year to allow pastors and churches to perform gay marriages in states where such marriages are legal.
PCUSA left it to individual pastors and their churches’ governing bodies to decide.
Rucker did say gays and lesbians are welcome to attend worship services at First Presbyterian.
Gallaher noted the issue of homosexuality has provoked controversy at the UMC’s national General Conference, which is held every four years and is next scheduled for 2016.
In all likelihood, next year’s General Conference will be no different from others over the last 20 years, he said.
Gallaher said he has received “a couple of calls” from people asking whether FUMC of Georgetown would permit gay marriage ceremonies.
He said he and the church is obliged to follow the Book of Discipline.
“(One woman) was pretty angry and mad on the phone,” Gallaher said.
“I said, ‘You’re always welcome here’” to worship, Gallaher said.
At St. John Catholic Church, Father Linh Nguyen deferred comment, referring instead to statements by highers-up in the Church hierarchy.
Neither statement by Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or Joe Stowe, bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, dealt with whether gays and lesbians could be married in Catholic churches.
Kurtz’s cited scriptural description of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Stowe emphasized the Catholic Church’s emphasis on marriage as a sacrament.
Since Friday morning, when the High Court released its decision, two same-sex couples have obtained marriage licenses in Scott County, County Clerk Rebecca Johnson said.
Downtown merchants Harold Dean Jessie and Steve Wiglesworth were the first, followed later that afternoon by a lesbian couple, Johnson said.
Johnson indicated she had decided weeks before the Supreme Court decision that her office would issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if game marriage was legalized.
She noted that a handful of other county clerks in Kentucky have decided not to issue marriage licenses at all, denying the documents to both hetero- and homosexual couples.
“I’m a constitutional elected officer. I have a choice to step down from my elected position as a county clerk … or comply with the law,” Johnson said.
The response by the county clerks who stopped issuing marriage licenses prompted Gov. Steve Beshear to release a statement Wednesday.
Beshear emphasized clerks do not have to agree with the ruling, but reminded them that they took an oath to uphold the constitution.
“Our county clerks took an oath, as elected officials, to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Kentucky and to provide important duties in their communities. This oath does not dictate what our clerks must believe, but it certainly prescribes how they must act in carrying out their duties as elected officials,” Beshear said.
“Same-sex couples in Kentucky are now entitled to the issuance of a marriage license by every county clerk, based on Friday’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jessie and Wiglesworth said they have found someone willing to preside over their vows, which they plan to take privately.
Scott County Judge-Executive George Lusby, whose position grants him authority to wed, has agreed, they said.
Lusby said he will perform same-sex wedding ceremonies — with a condition.
“If it’s a friend or a family member, yes, I’ll do it… (Not) if it’s somebody just off the street,” said Lusby.
“It doesn’t mean I agree with the new law,” he added.
Scott County Family Court Judge Lisa Hart Morgan also said she will officiate same-sex marriage ceremonies.
“I stopped by the Scott County Clerk’s office last Friday and offered to help perform marriage ceremonies, as my schedule permits, when I learned there was a need within the community for more public officials to serve as officiants for marriage ceremonies,” Morgan said Wednesday.
“Kentucky judges have the legal authority to perform marriages and I’m happy to help our local officials meet this need. As an elected official, charged with applying the law with the impartiality and respect that my oath of office requires, I will officiate marriage ceremonies for qualified applicants regardless of their sexual orientation following the Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex couples have a Constitutional right to marry,” Morgan said.
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