Episcopal Press and News
LOS ANGELES: Soulforce co-founders wed in Pasadena
Episcopal News Service. June 19, 2008 [061908-02]
Pat McCaughan, Correspondent for Episcopal Life Media in Province VIII
The Rev. Dr. Mel White and Gary Nixon, cofounders of the LGBT activist organization Soulforce, were married on June 18 at All Saints Church in Pasadena, California, where they met and fell in love 27 years ago.
The ceremony, both joyful and tearful, was the first same-gender wedding performed at the Pasadena church since the California State Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a voter-passed law defining marriage as the union only of a man and a woman.
"We encouraged Gary and Mel to get married during our noonday service since it is all about community," said the Rev. Zelda Kennedy, associate for pastoral care at All Saints.
"The whole issue for us is a pastoral issue," said Kennedy, who said she first met White when she baptized his grandchild. She added that 23 other same-gender couples have planned weddings at the church so far this year. The next one on the schedule will unite two women "who have made a difference in our community," Kennedy said. "They have come in and focused attention on the homeless, on people on the margins of society. It's a pastoral issue, but it's also a peace and justice issue, and as an African-American woman who is heterosexual I feel it's the right thing to do."
All Saints Church has blessed unions for some parishioners who are now requesting wedding ceremonies, Kennedy said. Most of those ceremonies are scheduled to take place within the context of the regular midweek service. "It's exciting, because not only will people who come for the regular service participate in it, they will also be witnessing something pastoral, beautiful and historic," she said.
"We are grateful to Bishop Jon Bruno for his willingness to say to an All Saints, Pasadena, do what you need to do pastorally," Kennedy added. "We know our diocese is wrestling with this issue and we appreciate having a diocese that is looking at how we can become an inclusive diocese."
In a letter to the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Los Angeles released on the evening of June 18, Bruno wrote, "I continue to be in dialogue with the other bishops throughout California on these issues. In addition, I have established this past week a panel of advice comprised of 18 clergy and laity of the diocese to prayerfully join with me in addressing the effect of the Supreme Court's decision on our diocese and the ramifications pastorally, canonically and on our prayer book.
"I stress that clergy of this diocese are expected to pastorally support all members of their congregations. I remind you that pastoral acts are personal decisions between clergy and members of their congregations," wrote Bruno.
To date, the Episcopal Church's General Convention has not authorized any rites for the blessing of same-sex relationships, although it has acknowledged that some clergy do perform such rites in the course of pastoral care.
Californians—and Episcopalians—are not of a single mind on the issue of same-sex marriage, and an initiative that would change the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman has qualified for the November election. The California Conference of Bishops (Roman Catholic) and other religious groups have stated their support of the ballot initiative.
California is the second state in the United States to offer legal same-sex marriage. Massachusetts began to allow the practice in 2004. The bishops of the Boston-based Diocese of Massachusetts, however, have forbidden clergy to officiate at same-sex marriages at this time. Although enthusiastic supporters of gay rights, the bishops cited the present canons and practice of the Episcopal Church in their decision to disallow such marriages, according to a May 2004 article in the Boston Globe.
Pasadena wedding marks new day, continues tradition
"It's just a normal weekday Eucharist at All Saints," said the Rev. Ed Bacon, All Saints rector, amid laughter at White and Nixon's June 18 ceremony. Assembled in a small chapel were about 25 guests—half of them regular worshippers who discovered upon their arrival they were wedding guests. Others had received hurriedly telephoned invitations. Bacon called upon them all to view the wedding couple as "walking witnesses of justice" and as "love made tangible."
"They were married long before this moment," Bacon told the gathering. "The vows they will offer are not the first time those vows have been expressed between them," he said referring to a previous blessing of the couple's union. "As Gary has told me, they have been living these vows for 27 years."
Bacon praised the California Supreme Court's "stand for justice for all, holding that marriage is 'a basic civil right of personal autonomy and liberty' to which all persons are entitled without regard to their sexual orientation."
Within a week of the May 15 landmark decision, the vestry of the Pasadena church known for its social activism voted to adopt a resolution to "treat with equality all couples presenting themselves for the rite of marriage," said Bacon. "This is in keeping with a now 16-year practice of All Saints recognizing that when members of our faith community find the love of their lives and commit to live in a life-long loving relationship that we would bless these covenants regardless of sexual orientation."
White also addressed the gathering, sparking laughter and applause when he said he approached a group of anti-gay protestors at Santa Ana's Old Courthouse when the couple picked up their marriage license the day before. "I said: 'Thank you so much for being here. Without these signs we never would have found this place. It just seemed so natural to have you there.'"
The couple, who reside in Lynchburg, Virginia, married the second full day after same-gender weddings became legal in California. The state Supreme Court ruling went into effect at 5:01 p.m. on Monday, June 16.
"We wanted to be here to say to the community of faith we couldn't do it without you. "We couldn't even last as a couple without the community of faith," White said during the ceremony.
White, 67, an ordained minister in the Metropolitan Community Church, said it was important to have the ceremony at All Saints. His voice breaking, he told the gathering that All Saints had been there for him and his former wife, Lyla, during "some of the worst and most terrifying moments" of their lives, including their separation and divorce, and after he came out as a gay man "and was immediately fired from Fuller Seminary as a professor." All Saints is also where he and Nixon, 58, met.
White's son once asked how he "could stand going back to church with what church has done to you," White recalled. "And I said because I know a church somewhere that stood for justice and love and peace and equality and full acceptance from the moment I walked through the doors. This is the church. That's why I wanted to be here on this occasion."
Bacon told the gathering that Wednesday's ceremony was the "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace that has been going on in these men's life together for now 27 years. It is this love made tangible that abides when all else fails and fades. It is this love … [which has] the power to heal, to forgive, to persevere, and to transform this beautiful but broken world from the human race into the human family."
After the June 18 ceremony, friends and well-wishers gathered in the parish hall for champagne and cookies.
"We are completing a circle that started 27 years ago," said Nixon, 58. "It's wonderful for us, but it's too bad it's taken so long. It's too bad the state can't be civil enough to have the same rights for everyone."
Kara Speltz, who said she'd been friends with Nixon and White for ten years and is also their personal assistant, said the service was beautiful and emotional. "For 27 years they've loved each other and brought so much to others," she said, teary-eyed. "I never thought about marriage as a justice issue before."
Michael Reagan said he is a regular worshipper at All Saints midweek services and knew of the wedding although he is not acquainted with the couple. "It was great. Today is a wonderful day," he said.
Reagan was in the registrar's office in East Los Angeles from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 17, serving as a temporary deputy commissioner for civil ceremonies. He performed about seven weddings, he said. "There were a lot of surprises from a number of people. One woman who came in expected to be cool and collected. But she burst into tears. I said to her, 'Sometimes cool ain't what you think it is," he added.
All Saints parishioner Dorothy Rusch had no idea a wedding was planned when she decided to attend the midweek service. "It was delightful," she said, adding: "I came for the healing."
After a brief stay in Laguna Beach, White and Nixon will "then return to test the laws of Virginia," White said.
White says he doesn't believe a November 4 ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples will gain voter approval.
"Nothing changes in November, nothing happens as far as we will be concerned," he said. "It'd be a tragedy for the whole nation if California stepped back into the dark ages. This is the greatest progress we've ever made."