Judicial complaint filed against PCUSA minister for officiating at same-sex marriage ceremony
The Layman Online, July 22, 2005
A judicial complaint has been filed against a Presbyterian minister for officiating at what is described as the wedding of two women in Pennsylvania.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on June 28 reported “the union of Brenda Cole and Nancy McConn. Cole’s position as a research psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, McConn’s retirement from Xerox Corp., their mutual love of bird watching and horseback riding were duly noted.”
The newspaper’s report also said that, “The Reverend Doctor Janet Edwards officiated in a ceremony integrating the couple’s Buddhist and Christian traditions. Dr. Edwards is a Presbyterian minister active in advancing the full recognition of gay persons within the Pittsburgh Presbytery.”
More Light Presbyterians, an advocacy group seeking the approval of gay ordination within the Presbyterian Church (USA), reported July 20 that “a judicial complaint has been filed” against Edwards, an at-large member of Pittsburgh Presbytery, “for her support of love, of a loving and caring relationship between two women, of her doing what a good pastor ought to do, recognize, celebrate and honor the love and commitment between two loving adults.”
A 1991 General Assembly interpretation allowed same-sex unions as long as they are not considered marriages. In 2000, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s ruled that blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples are not prohibited as long as they are not specifically identified as “marriages” or “unions.”
Edwards has long advocated for the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons. In 2001, for example, she opposed a ban on same-sex blessing ceremonies by clergy or in the churches the presbytery. The presbytery’s Committee on Ministry later voted against the ban. “I can accept that the right [wing of the church] stands for the truth of the law in Scripture,” Edwards said at the time. “I would like for the right to acknowledge that I, on the left, stand for mercy. It is only God who brings these opposites together,” she said.
She told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 17 that, after further skirmishes within the presbytery, “a sort of truce evolved.”
“I knew I was breaking that truce,” she said about the marriage ceremony. “I stay quiet for a while and then I do something, then I stay quiet for a while and then I do something.”
“The most radical punishment that has happened so far in the Presbyterian Church is a rebuke,” she told the newspaper.