LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PCUSA) has reversed a lower court’s censure of a lesbian minister who performed what critics called same-sex "weddings" for two lesbian couples in California.
"It is not improper for ministers of the Word and Sacrament to perform same-sex ceremonies," ruled the Permanent Judicial Commission of the PCUSA in a decision released April 28.
"At least four times, the larger church has rejected overtures that would prohibit blessing the unions of same-sex couples."
The decision about Jane Spahr, who was charged in 2004 and initially cleared in 2006, hinged on language in the church’s "Book of Order," which defines marriage as "between a woman and a man."
The high court found that the lower court in the church’s Synod of the Pacific Judicial Commission (SPJC) was mistaken in its determination last year that Spahr had violated that language.
"By the definition in (the "Book of Order"), a same-sex ceremony can never be a marriage," the high court ruled. "The SPJC found Spahr guilty of doing that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot characterize same-sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes."
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