United Church of Christ endorses same-sex marriage, largest Christian denomination to do so

Tuesday, July 5, 2005

In a meeting on Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, the United Church of Christ overwhelmingly approved a resolution supporting same-sex marriage, therefore becoming the largest Christian denomination to do so. UCC has over 6,000 congregations and 1.3 million members.

In a press conference, Rev. John H. Thomas said, "On this July Fourth the General Synod of the United Church of Christ has acted courageously to declare freedom, affirming marriage equality, affirming the civil rights of same gender couples to have their relationships recognized as marriages by the state, and encouraging our local churches to celebrate and bless those marriages."

Thomas also acknowledged that the issue of marriage equality is "the source of great conflict" not only in society but also in the churches. The UCC, he said, "is no exception" and "there are clearly great differences among our own members over this."

The decision is non-binding but asks member churches to consider wedding policies "that do not discriminate against couples based on gender" and support laws granting equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

Some member churches have suggested they may leave the denomination but most members appeared to support the resolution noting some ministers already perform same-sex ceremonies.

UCC was criticized last year for creating a television commercial including a gay couple being excluded from a church. The 30-second ad was rejected by most TV networks.

Sources

Shaila Dewan. "United Church of Christ Backs Same-Sex Marriage" — New York Times, July 5, 2005

Doug Gross, AP. "United Church of Christ Backs Gay Marriage" — Guardian Unlimited, July 4, 2005

Irwin Smallwood. "General Synod overwhelmingly calls for "full marriage equality"" — United Church of Christ, July 4, 2005

Share this:

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.
Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.