News :: GLBT
Black Episcopal congregation celebrates lesbian marriage by Rev. Irene Monroe
Bay Windows ContributorThursday Sep 10, 2009 This past July, the liberal arm of the U.S. Episcopal Church passed a resolution to bless same-sex unions. Here in Massachusetts, one black congregation within the diocese blessed one such union. On August 30th, St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church (St. Bart’s) in Cambridge housed the marriage and blessed the union of the city’s mayor, E. Denise Simmons and her lifetime partner, Ms. Mattie Hayes.
This historic event happened in part due to the fierce determination of a straight ally to Cambridge’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community: the church’s new Priest-in-Charge, the Reverend Leslie K. Sterling. Sterling is also the first African-American female priest at St. Bart’s. Having just arrived at St. Bart’s in February, Sterling brings a new vision to a church that has served both the African-American and African-Carribean community for over 100 years.
When I went to meet with Sterling to discuss our roles as officiates in the mayor’s nuptials, I asked her if she were ready to jump into in this conflagration that has the Episcopal Church at the brink of schism.
"Some will leave I know, but those who oppose and stay, at least, we can talk about it in a spirited conversation," Sterling said.
Cambridge, like many of its residents, revels in its image as a bastion of liberalism. It’s true, it’s a city of many firsts -- both E. Denise Simmons and Kenneth Reeves being the first African American openly queer mayors of a major U.S. city.
Underneath Cambridge’s liberal facade, however, is a rampant racist element that cannot be closeted. The racial profiling that went global in the July arrest of Harvard professor Henry "Skip" Louis Gates by a white cop is one such element as is its toxically homophobic black congregations in both liberal white denominations and the historical black ones. These congregations contribute to its communities being under both spiritual and sexual siege. For example, Reeves who was once a longtime worshipper at the historic African-American St. Paul’s A.M.E in Cambridge, left St. Paul’s after May 2004, when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. The church made it clear it would neither bless same-sex unions nor marry its queer parishioners.
Mayor Simmons, a native Cantabridgian, presides over a diverse demographic consisting of people from various racial, cultural, economic and sexual orientations, had but one church she could go to with the hopes of not being turned down.
"I am cognizant of the deeper societal implications of this marriage...[St. Bartholomew] might be the very first mainstream African American church to hold a same-gender wedding," Simmons told Cambridge Chronicle.
In preparing her parishioners for their leap of faith Sterling wrote in a letter to them stating the following:
"I am aware of all the Bible verses conservatives cite in opposition to homosexuality, and I am also aware that there is more than one way to look at each one of those verses. If we believe that the Spirit continues to guide the church in the interpretation of scripture, as was done with respect to slavery and the status of women, then we have to consider the possibility that the Spirit is speaking today, as the hearts and minds of so many people at so many levels of Bible scholarship no longer read those verses as a blanket condemnation of same-sex relationships, or as a reason to deny committed, faithful couples a blessing on their marriage."
To be in full compliance with the canons of the Episcopal Church which would avoid Sterling confronting ecclesiastical probation or being defrocked, the wedding liturgy was divided among three officiates -- The Rev. Sterling, Jada D. Simmons, the mayor’s oldest daughter (a Justice of the Peace), and me.
I was elated to be a part of this liturgical assembly line helping to make a historic event happen within the ecclesial strictures of the church. Sterling did the invocation, declaration of consent to marry, and blessing of the marriage; Simmons pronounced the marriage, and I did the homily, blessing of rings and vows.
At the end of the wedding service when Simmons and Hayes walked down the aisle as a married couple to the church clapping and the choir singing the gospel tune "Oh Happy Day," I turned to Sterling and asked what she thought about the service.
"I’m feeling the history of the moment and what it must have been when black folks were able to marry."
Historically, as African Americans, we have always focused on spiritual content of family and not physical composition of it.
Hayes spoke to me about the spiritual content of her family when she said, "Of course to have my marriage, my wedding to be in an historic event is phenomenal. But the bottom line is as wonderful as all that is, I have married the woman I love, Denise Simmons."
These multiple family structures, which we have had to devise as models of resistance and liberation, have always, by example, shown the rest of society what really constitutes family. A family where a grandmother raises her grandchild or a lesbian couple raises their children. Just like in the Simmons-Hayes household. A household that is now legal by the state and blessed by the church.
|
|
|
Email
Print
Share
