Songs of Praise broadcasts first same-sex wedding
SONGS OF PRAISE has screened the show’s first gay wedding as part of a modernisation drive.
Presenters of the BBC One show vowed they were “not afraid of controversy” as they broadcast a wedding that is currently banned in the Church of England.
The show, which has run since 1961, was traditionally a “sort of hymn sandwich”, Pam Rhodes, a presenter for more than three decades, said. Now, with a magazine format and a cast that includes Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh soprano, and JB Gill, the former frontman of boy-band JLS, the show is appealing to a new audience.
Last month, Stormzy , the grime star, allowed his Glastonbury headline performance of Blinded By Your Grace to be broadcast on Songs of Praise.
Yesterday’s episode featured the wedding of Jamie Wallace and Ian Mcdowall at the Rutherglen United Reformed Church in Glasgow, one of the few religious denominations in the UK to welcome same-sex marriage.
Since 2016, individual congregations have been able to vote on whether their church should hold the weddings.
Ms Jenkins, 39, told The Mail on Sunday: “Today we do have our congregational moments but we show the different ways people worship. It’s about adapting, making faith personal.”
The show’s changing audience was demonstrated to Rev Kate Bottley, 44, the programme’s only ordained presenter, when she sat down next to a man drinking whisky at 4am at Glastonbury Tor and he turned to her and said: “Aren’t you on Songs of Praise?”
The vicar said: “I don’t expect people to fall on their knees in front of Songs Of Praise. But we do do the big stuff – life, love, death and trauma – and we are definitely not afraid of controversy.”