From the Marin Independent Journal on Tuesday:
In an unprecedented defiance of a church judicial commission, representatives of Northern California Presbyterian churches Tuesday refused to rebuke a retired pastor for marrying 16 same-sex couples when gay marriage was legal in California in 2008. The 74-18 vote on a motion opposing the censure of the Rev. Jane Spahr came at a meeting of the Presbytery of the Redwoods at the First Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo.
People affiliated with the church told both the Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle that the vote represented the first time a regional body had defied a ruling by the national church on an issue concerning gays and lesbians.
In February, the church's General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission upheld a lower regional body's ruling to censure Spahr. The charges she was found guilty of included:
- Committing the offense of representing that a same-sex ceremony was a marriage by performing a ceremony in which two women were married under the laws of the State of California and thereafter signing their
Certificate of Marriage as the person solemnizing the marriage;-Persisting in a pattern or practice of disobedience concerning an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order, in that under the laws of the State of California, she represented that no fewer than fifteen such additional ceremonies she performed were marriages of persons of the same sex...
In its ruling (read a pdf of the decision here), the General Assembly wrote "the issue is not simply the same-sex ceremony. It is the misrepresentation that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) recognizes the ceremony and the resulting relationship to be a marriage in the eyes of the church." The ruling, issued in response to an appeal by Spahr, also agreed with the lower assembly that "being faithful to Scripture and the Constitution on other matters does not provide a defense for the actions charged in this case."
The censure was to be accepted by the monthly assembly of the regional Presbytery of the Redwoods at the First Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo. But instead, the Redwoods Presbytery rebelled, passing a motion resolving that the Presbytery "opposes imposition of the rebuke set forth in the decision...as inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the faithful life of ministry lived out in this Presbytery." (Read the full motion here.)