Episcopalians, Mennonites differ on same-sex marriage

Same-sex wedding liturgies can be used in Episcopal churches beginning in late November if local bishops approve, following a vote this week by the legislative body of the Episcopal Church.

Pittsburgh Bishop Dorsey McConnell said he will confer with local church leaders before commenting formally, but he has accommodated church support for same-sex couples in the past.

He praised last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision granting a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. He previously authorized, but did not require, clergy to perform liturgical blessings of same-sex couples and, after gay marriage was allowed in Pennsylvania in 2014, to sign their marriage licenses.

Delegates for the Mennonite Church USA, meanwhile, voted 581-288 Thursday for a measure calling for “forbearance” amid deep disagreements over homosexuality. Meeting in Kansas City, Mo., they also voted 473-310 to uphold current membership guidelines that forbid performing samesex marriages. The church, with about 95,000 members, has about two dozen congregations in its Somerset-based Allegheny Conference and has traditionally blended conservative theology with pacifist and socially progressive stances.

Both denominations rejected calls to boycott and divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, in contrast to approval of that path by the United Church of Christ this week and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) last year.

The Episcopal Church General Convention’s vote on marriage Wednesday occurred less than a week after the Supreme Court ruling. The convention, meeting in Salt Lake City, approved changes in church law and liturgy so that all couples can be included, not just with terms such as “husband” and “wife.”

Bishop McConnell called on local Episcopalians to recognize the diversity of each other’s views and to “walk together” in unity.

The changes came via overwhelming votes among the convention’s bishops, clergy and lay delegates, and they further sealed the church’s affirmation of gays and lesbians.

The lack of suspense or major controversy contrasted with the global furor a dozen years ago after the Episcopal Church’s election of its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. That vote ignited long-simmering tensions with the church’s more conservative overseas partners and led to a schism that had its epicenter in Pittsburgh with the formation of the Anglican Church in North America.

The Mennonite votes represented the church’s deep divide on homosexuality, said Dave Swanson, pastor of Pittsburgh Mennonite Church in Swissvale.

“The stakes are perceived very differently on both sides,” he said, with one seeing it as a matter of purity and the other one of justice.

He was disappointed with the vote. “For a group of people who are finally emboldened and forced to declare their own membership in the church, the church has yet again refused to acknowledge their participation in its life,” he said. “They’re already here, they already worship and love God and the rest of us.”