Separation of church, state - and marriage? - BostonHerald.com

Separation of church, state - and marriage? - BostonHerald.com

By Jennifer Garza / McClatchy Newspapers | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Lifestyle
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Some clergy think churches should divorce themselves from the wedding business.

The controversy about same-sex marriage - along with a growing sense that many couples who marry in churches never return - has prompted Golden State faith leaders to say it’s time to reconsider how couples tie the knot.

After the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal in May, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California began encouraging all couples to marry outside the church.

“I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service, and then being blessed in the Episcopal Church,” Bishop Marc Handley Andrus wrote his clergy last month.

This model is used by many European countries, according to John Witte, director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in Atlanta. He said that approach has been practiced in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia and elsewhere for many years.

“In those countries, the civil ceremony is sufficient,” he said.

The Very Rev. Brian Baker, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento, supports the bishop’s proposal.

Being a part of couple’s special day is an honor, Baker said. But like other clergy, he believes weddings have become too trying in recent years.

“There are a lot of benefits in getting out of the legal marriage business,” he said. “This way the clergy and the couple can focus on the spiritual blessings the church has to offer and not the political stuff.”

The proposal has intrigued church members. “I’d like to learn more. Is a blessing the same as a wedding?” asked Kim Lake of Sacramento.

George Raya is a member of Integrity, the Episcopal Church’s support group for gays and lesbians.

“To me, it’s (the church’s) way of getting around treating us equally,” said Raya. “As soon as we can get married, they want us to get blessed? A lot of us would like to get married in church.”

The Episcopal Church does not allow same-sex marriages.

Many couples still dream of the big church wedding - the steeple, the organ music, the flowers on the altar.

Despite the rise in destination weddings - overlooking the ocean, or in a foothills winery, or in Hawaii - nearly half of all ceremonies take place at a house of worship, according to the Conde Nast American Wedding Study 2006.

Stephanie Franks was willing to wait - and pay for her dream church wedding. Last month, she married Christopher Malenab in a traditional Catholic ceremony at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, perhaps the region’s most popular sanctuary for weddings.

The downtown Sacramento church is booked for most of the year and charges $2,300 per wedding, a cost that includes the use of the sanctuary as well as fees for the organist and the wedding coordinator.

“I grew up practicing my faith,” said Franks, two days before her ceremony. “To me, getting married in a church is important for religious reasons.”

But that is not true for all couples, said Baker and other clergy. Many come for the wedding and the pictures by the stained-glass windows but never return to the church.

“They want to get married, so they pick a church but don’t go after the ceremony,” said Baker. “We never see them again.”

To combat so-called drive-by weddings, several Sacramento churches signed a “wedding covenant” several years ago, said the Rev. Rick Cole, pastor of Capital Christian Center in Sacramento.

“Basically, we agreed that couples would have to undergo a certain amount of premarital counseling,” Cole said.

He officiates 15 church weddings a year, most of them members. “We wouldn’t marry someone just looking for a church.”

Cole said he had not heard of the proposal by Episcopal Church leaders. “But I think people should have a choice. If they want a civil marriage, that’s fine. But a lot of people want church weddings.”

The idea of a secular marriage followed by a religious ceremony is something church leaders of various faiths have been discussing since the ruling on gay marriage, said Kent Carlson of Oak Hills Church in Folsom, Calif. He finds the idea “interesting,” but said, “I’m still thinking about it.”

Carlson said many pastors are concerned about working as agents of the state, something they do during wedding ceremonies when they say, for example, “by the power vested in me.”

“This makes some ministers uncomfortable because we’re performing a civil function,” said Carlson. “Most of us are pastors first.”

The Rev. Scot Sorensen of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Sacramento is familiar with how the issues of church, state and marriage are handled in other countries.

“Two ceremonies - one civil and one faith - might have some merits to consider,” Sorensen said.

He doesn’t turn couples away who want to marry at his church, even if he knows the couple will likely not return.

“We know they’re probably looking for a pretty building,” he said. “But I think something is stirring them inside to want to be married in a church.”