PCUSA pastor conducts same-sex
wedding ceremony at Occupy DC event
The Layman, March 29, 2012
The Rev. Brian Merritt officiated the wedding of two women, Marina Brown and Laura Potter on March 2 in McPherson Square, Washington D.C., a place the Occupy DC movement called home for many months before being evicted in February.
The ceremony, which made Brown and Potter’s 15-year partnership legal in some states, included several different religious traditions. The same-sex couple wore headscarves to show solidarity with other faiths. They were blessed by leaders of their pagan and Unitarian congregations and were officially married by Merritt, a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister.
According to the article on Campus Progress website, Brown and Potter viewed the ceremony as a renewing of their vows, since they considered themselves married 11 years ago in a pagan hand-fasting ritual.
Merritt, an advocate for gay marriage, has conducted eight same-sex ceremonies – all in violation of his ordination vows.
He told Campus Progress, “This one is extremely special for me because I’ve been down here so much. It’s the first one [I’ve done] where the couple hasn’t cried. Most of the couples have been waiting so long that it’s such a hugely emotional day. These people have suffered for their relationship to survive 8, 10, 20 years.”
A video of the wedding ceremony is posted on the Campus Progress website.
The vows, read by Merritt, and then repeated by the couple said, “I take you [Marina/Laura] to be my wife and I promise before these witnesses to be your loving and faithful wife in joy and in sorrow in sickness and in health as long as we both shall live.”
The vows were followed by the exchanging of rings.
Merritt then made the announcement that “we have waited for and they have waited — I’m sure — for longer than anyone else: Before the presence of these witnesses Marina and Laura have made their solemn vows to each other. They have confirmed their promises by joining hands and giving and receiving rings. Therefore I proclaim they are now wife and wife. Blessed are those who show love to one another. Those whom God has joined let no one separate.”
He ended the ceremony by saying, “Go in peace. Go in love and may the one who binds us together today always bind us together.”
On his personal blog site, Merritt posted the “Statement of marriage from today’s Occuwedding.”
He wrote that, “Marriage is a liturgical act that binds two people in a covenant with each other and celebrates their love, mercy, peace and hope that they intend to celebrate throughout their breathing hours with one another… Liturgy is a democratic act of the people and is the decision this morning that no matter what our faith, we affirm that this love is acceptable in the sight of our God. Not only is it acceptable, but that when communities come together and affirm love, mercy, peace and hope it is extremely pleasing in the eyes of our God.”
He continued that, “No less than Jesus, Himself, states that His ministry on earth was to bring life and to give life in abundance. … It is our hope that joining these two lives will intermingle passion, care and love, but also that it will bring about an ever increasing abundant life.”
Saying that the greatest act of revolt against an entrenched power is affirming that the people gain life through something greater than anything the power can provide, Merritt continued, “This is what we celebrate. There is no principality or power or ruler of darkness in this world that can shake our resolve to affirm the freedom that life brings. We will not be enticed by the shiny and mesmerizing talismans of power, money and greed. We come to celebrate life! We come to celebrate love! We come to celebrate Freedom!”
‘Stunning hypocrisy’ of GAPJC
There was no question that Merritt knew he was violating his ordination vows by conducting the same-sex marriage ceremony.
Only a couple of days before conducting the wedding ceremony, Merritt wrote a blog concerning the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision in the case of the Rev. Jane Sphar. The GAPJC upheld a lower court’s rebuke of Spahr for performing 16 same-sex ceremonies in violation of the PCUSA constitution between June and November 2008 in California.
The GAPJC said that the key issue of the case “is not simply the same-sex ceremony. It is the misrepresentation that the [PCUSA] recognizes the ceremony and the resulting relationship to be a marriage in the eyes of the church. By the definition of W-4.9001 [the denomination’s prohibition of same-sex ceremonies being defined as ecclesiastical marriages], such a result cannot be,” the decision stated.
“The critical question is not whether the definitional language creates proscribed conduct, it is whether it is permissible to represent that one is doing something which one cannot constitutionally do,” the decision added.
Merritt called the decision “stunning hypocrisy … This has a chilling effect on people of conscience and will encourage the most radical conservative elements to again use our church courts to persecute ministers for using spiritual wisdom over legalism or fundamentalism.”
Merritt correctly observed that the PCUSA now finds itself in the “bipolar theological stance of accepting gay and lesbian elders and ministers in our community of faiths, but denying them access to one of our essential liturgical acts.”
The “strange” nature of the church, he said, is “finding ourselves tone deaf to the movement of the Spirit in new generations. Polity can become idolatry. Polity was made for humans and not humans for polity. It is a sad state when a reformed church sidles itself with bureaucracy and a rote non-questioning status quo over a new generation of leadership in the church.”
“Long live the Presbyterian Church that I love,” Merritt wrote. “Long live the church that might convict me for celebrating love.”
A clear intent to violate vows
Merritt made his intention of violating his ordination vows clear in a 2010 open letter to the 219th General Assembly. That assembly voted to receive — but not adopt — two contradicting reports on same-sex unions and marriage and commend them to presbyteries and sessions for prayer and study.
One report, according to a Layman Online article, “claimed an inability to reach conclusion on the Biblical meaning of marriage, so it urged study, counseled kindness and vaguely suggested a form of local option for pastoral participation in same-sex union or marriage ceremonies.”
The second report stated, “It is the intent of this report to represent the church’s Biblical, historic and confessional position that, among all varieties of sexual relationships, only marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God and blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Merritt countered saying, “On the issue of same gender marriage, I stand with the teaching of Pauline Christology when he claims to the uncircumcised gentiles of Galatia and Rome ‘against such things there is no law.’ I do not believe that our 219th General Assembly, or anyone for that matter, has the authority to bind the conscience on matters that the Spirit of God is directing portions of her church. I therefore cannot follow the definition of marriage set out by our current Book of Order,” wrote Merritt.
“I believe the inaction of the General Assembly, the abdication for fear of losing some of our most conservative elements, and the culture of disciplining only progressive ministers unfairly constitutes a betrayal of the ‘true liberty of conscience’ spoken of in the Westminster Confession,” he wrote. “What you have left liberals and progressives is the terrible choice of lying or hiding their actions of conscience, binding their conscience and losing their liberty in Christ, or to face the emotionally, spiritually and psychologically draining possibility that evangelicals will use church courts to sell their ideology in the name of ‘purity.’”
Merritt, pastor of Palisades Community Church Washington D.C., is a founding member of Occupy Faith D.C., an interfaith coalition supporting the action of the Occupy Movement in the National Capital Region. He is married to the Rev. Carol Howard Merritt, associate pastor at Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. She is moderator of the Special Committee to Study the Nature of the Church for the 21st Century, a committee mandated by the 219th General Assembly to “help to increase understanding of the church from a Reformed and Presbyterian perspective and assist current and new members in forming faithful plans for our common future.” The committee’s report to the 220th GA can be found here.