Weddings and Holy Unions
We, the people of the Park Slope United Methodist Church, are committed to including all. To that end, our church has taken the following stand: Until all can be married within our church walls, none shall be married within our church walls.
This window, with its rainbow path to a happy couple of unspecified gender and sexuality was created in 2000 as a statement of support for our Reconciling community.
The larger
denomination of the United Methodist Church continues to struggle with
its policies on the exclusion of gay and lesbian people. In 1996, the
General Conference of the national United Methodist Church added this, paragraph 332.6, to the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline: “Ceremonies that
celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and
shall not be conducted in our churches.” One United Methodist pastor,
Jimmy Creech, was expelled from the ministry under this ban, and
others have been disciplined. This ban joins other discriminatory
language in the Book of Discipline, including language barring
“self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from ordained ministry.
We were deeply saddened when efforts in which our pastor at the time, Liz Braddon, our congregation and many others joined failed to remove the holy union ban during the 2000 General Conference. At that time, Park Slope United Methodist Church, as a congregation deliberated on how to respond. In a congregational vote in June 2001, the PSUMC community overwhelmingly favored adopting an explicit non-discrimination policy: to celebrate holy unions and legal weddings under equal guidelines. PSUMC’s Church Council adopted such a policy in August and amended it slightly on September 13. Now more than ever, we are committed to celebrate God’s blessings together.
We were deeply saddened when efforts in which our pastor at the time, Liz Braddon, our congregation and many others joined failed to remove the holy union ban during the 2000 General Conference. At that time, Park Slope United Methodist Church, as a congregation deliberated on how to respond. In a congregational vote in June 2001, the PSUMC community overwhelmingly favored adopting an explicit non-discrimination policy: to celebrate holy unions and legal weddings under equal guidelines. PSUMC’s Church Council adopted such a policy in August and amended it slightly on September 13. Now more than ever, we are committed to celebrate God’s blessings together.
The following is PSUMC’s policy on weddings and holy unions:
It is the policy of Park Slope United Methodist Church that exchanging of vows for all covenant services, including legal weddings, for all couples in our church community, will be held in places other than in our church, such as churches of other denominations, private homes, the garden, or parks and other public spaces. The pastor will no longer conduct legal marriage or holy union ceremonies.
As an inclusive Christian community, we refuse to discriminate against each other, and we will work to remove discriminatory policies in the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline, which offend against Christ’s teaching that we love one another as God loves us.
Park Slope United Methodist Church strives to celebrate all of God’s blessings for each of us. We celebrate the joys of many different kinds of human relationships, including committed relationships among couples regardless of their sexual orientation. We believe that God blesses the love between same-sex and different-sex couples equally, and does not want us to discriminate against each other.