Dozens of churches throughout the state have endorsed a November ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. But when same-sex couples begin leaving municipal offices next week with marriage licenses in hand, some clergy will be meeting them at the altar.
Episcopalians, Unitarian Universalists, rabbis, a Methodist and even a Catholic priest are planning to bless some same-sex marriages when they are set to become legal in California on Monday.
"I believe the family is a cornerstone for a strong society, and I'm all in favor of everything we can do to build up the values that make strong families," said the Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which has been blessing same-sex unions for 16 years.
"I think the values matter more than the gender of the people making up the heads of those families," Russell said.
Gay marriage and religion tend to create a volatile mix, and there are even disagreements over the issue among pastors of the same denomination.
Even as some clergy plan to officiate same-sex marriages, others are scripting sermons defining marriage as a divine union that is only acceptable between a man and a woman.
Much of the conflict is over whether the state-endorsed gay marriages are a civil contract alone and not an imposition on any given church or strictly religious covenants.
Miles McPherson is senior pastor at The Rock Church in San Diego, which has endorsed the November ballot initiative. He says liberal churches' message of inclusion for everybody ignores God's call for people to stop sinning.
"Unconditional love does not mean unconditional approval. So we don't see it at all as a civil issue; it's a spiritual issue that has spiritual implications," McPherson said.
He says the marriages will lead to a slow erosion of religious freedom. He cites the California Students Rights Act of 2007, which adds sexual orientation to a list of qualities schools cannot discriminate against, and the fact that Catholic Charities in Boston pulled out of the adoption business when that state's law required it to provide services to same-sex couples.
Catholics have long rejected homosexuality, and the Pope issued a statement a day after the court's ruling affirming that marriage is suitable only between one man and one woman.
Bishop Allen Vigneron of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland has written a letter which has been interpreted as urging his flock to oppose the November ballot initiative: "As faithful citizens, Catholics are called to bring our laws regarding marriage into conformity with what we know about the nature of marriage," he wrote.
Kerry Chaplin, a director at California Faith for Equality, a group which fights for same-sex marriage rights, says she knows at least one Catholic priest who will be marrying people and one Methodist minister who will defy her church's doctrine and bless same-sex marriages next week.
Antonio Salas, coordinator of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics group at Newman Hall Holy Spirit parish in Berkeley, said he knows of renegade priests who have performed religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.
"The greatest sin is to sin against your conscience. With an informed conscience, you can dissent from the church's teaching," Salas said.
Jay Johnson, a director at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, says there are clergy who, while supporting gay marriage, refuse to sign state marriage certificates because they don't want to blur the line between the religious and the secular.
"One of the ongoing confusions is the fact that the difference between civil marriage and religious marriage is very blurred in American society. The fact that clergy can act as agents of the state regarding marriage licenses just contributes to that blurring," said Johnson, also an Episcopal priest.
However, Bishop Marc Andrus of Episcopal Diocese of California, which encompasses only the San Francisco Bay area, has been a vocal advocate of same-sex marriage rights, urging his parishioners to fight the November ballot initiative and encouraging his clergy to help the city conduct the ceremonies next week. But, he added, clergy will not be allowed to wear religious attire.
Rabbi Robert Ourach presides over the largest synagogue in California's conservative Central Valley, the Temple Beth Israel of Fresno. He agrees with the court's ruling, but still has not decided whether he will officiate over religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. He hasn't received any requests to do so.
In Reform Judaism, rabbis have autonomy to make these decisions based on their own conscience and reading of Jewish law, he said.
"Most of us at the very least are very open to this whole idea that marriage rights should be granted, certainly on a secular basis," Ourach said. "But a rabbi will have to decide what they are going to do based on their understanding of the tradition, what they feel comfortable doing."
