My Grandfather’s Column

 Couples Gay and Straight

Our Vicar Karen's letter in our last month was a splendid piece of praise for Church Weddings  I hope you haven't thrown it away because I want to make some  comments on it.  She told us that the General Synod of the Church of England had decided to make it easier for couples to marry in church.  It was here, reading those words, that made me ask myself: "What would gay couples think about that?"  Everything Karen wrote in this piece was fine for straight couples but it strikes me that gay or lesbian couples have even more need for this Church ministry than straight ones, for many of them want to make the same vows of life-long commitment to each other and to God. Currently, while they can have their civil partnership registered lawfully in register offices or other recognised places, just as can those straight couples who either don't wish – or feel they can't afford – a wedding in church, these homosexual couples, no matter how deeply they may be committed to God and to each other, are not allowed to have their partrnership celebrated in our churches.

A christian wedding, as Karen helps us to see, is more thasn a contract and has rather the nature of a covenant between the two parties and reflects the relationship between God and us.  Is this not equally true if the couple are of the same sex?

Obviously this way of thinking is fairly new and controversial and is the cause of much anguish in the Anglican Communion and in other Churches.  My own convictions, already strong, were further fortified by my presence and participation in the ceremony in which a godson of mine celebrated with his partner and many friends and relatives their union and life-long commitment to God and to each other.  Most surprising to me and most delightful was the form of words used by the Registrar and the couple in front of her.  These words came almost entirely from our Prayer Book Marriage service.  After the legal bit, including the exchange of rings, the Registrar left and we went on to listen to two passages from the Bible, two further deeply christian readings, an address and a prayer and blessing.  A bishop and some nine priests were present among the great crowd of friends and relatives of the couple.

After this we all went off to a Parish Church where we enjoyed a splendid banquet.  The whole event was just as glorious as many weddings I've attended.

Much as I used to enjoy presiding at weddings during the days of my active ministry, I could hardly fail to be aware that in quite a lot of cases it was not easy to believe any commitment to God was involved.  A same-sex couple would hardly ask for a Church ceremony unless they really wanted to express their love of God as well as of each other.  So I hope that before I die the Church will come round to blessing such unions, as God himself has often obviously done.

-Peter Graham