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Church panel clears pastor
Same-sex weddings found not to violate
Presbyterian law
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
SANTA ROSA Saturday, March 4, 2006
A Presbyterian minister who performed weddings for same-sex couples was
cleared Friday of accusations that she had violated church rules.
In a 6-1 decision, a judicial commission of the Redwoods Presbytery found
that the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, 63, had committed no offense and "was
acting within her right of conscience in performing marriage ceremonies
for same-sex couples."
Spahr was accused of violating the church's constitution when she
performed two weddings for lesbian couples, one near Guerneville in 2005
and another in Rochester, N.Y., in 2004.
But the judicial commission in Santa Rosa found that although the
Presbyterian Church's constitution defined marriage as between a man and a
woman, it did not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages.
"I would definitely call this a historic decision," said Sara Taylor,
Spahr's attorney. "A mainline denomination like the Presbyterian Church
said for the first time that an acting minister has the right to perform
same-sex marriages."
Spahr was ordained in 1974 and is minister director of a gay-and-lesbian
advocacy group in the Presbyterian Church of the United States called That
All May Freely Serve.
"It's an incredible feeling after 30-some years to have this moment," she
said after the church commission cleared her. "I can only say I'm grateful
to God."
Spahr has performed hundreds of same-sex ceremonies since the 1970s, and
in recent years she has officiated at several religious weddings.
The attorney representing the Redwoods Presbytery, which stretches from
Marin County to the Oregon border, disagreed with the commission's
decision.
"My candid response is it's extremely poorly reasoned and is not well
decided," attorney Stephen Taber said. He said the commission had
misquoted an interpretation of the constitution as it applies to same-sex
unions, and said that allowing ministers to disobey rules as matters of
conscience put the church on a slippery slope.
"You have a situation where any minister anywhere can claim, 'My
conscience tells me I can sleep with 16-year-old girl outside my marriage
vows,' and who's to question his conscience?" Taber said.
The presbytery has 45 days to decide whether to appeal the decision to a
regional judicial council.
E-mail Wyatt Buchanan at
wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com.
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©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
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