Rev. Gail Marriner is hopeful that one day wedding bells will ring for all. - Enrique Limón
Books stacked up to the rafters line the perimeter of Rev. Gail Marriner’s study. “It’s an occupational hazard,” she says. “When you’re talking in front of people every week, you better have fresh material to share with them.”
Her church, Unitarian Universalist—which was also involved in the civil rights and feminist movements—has openly embraced a fresh topic on the minds of many New Mexicans, that of same-sex marriage, since 1984.
“It is a big issue within our church; we’re just way ahead of the curve,” she says. Since taking the reins as head of Santa Fe’s congregation in May 2011, however, Marriner has eschewed signing marriage licenses for any unions, same-sex or otherwise.
“I’ve been in ministry 18 years,” Marriner says, “and the full time that I’ve been in ministry, my association has been doing rites of passage for gay and lesbian peoples and transgender and bisexual folks when they have wanted to marry,” she explains.
Though Marriner describes those ceremonies as “wonderful and joyful,” she decided to take a defiant stance until the word “marriage” applies to everyone in her flock.
“The place that I get tangled, in this point in time, is that as a Unitarian Universalist minister, when I sign a marriage license for a mixed-sex couple, I give them access to 1,400 benefits under the law,” she says. “I have not signed a single marriage certificate since I’ve been here, and I won’t—until I can do that for any couple in my congregation that chooses to marry.”
Instead, the Harvard Divinity School grad refers couples from outside the congregation who wish to marry to other local UU clergy. Those from within her congregation who long to do so get a sit-down talk with the Minister explaining her motives.
“They’ve been willing to go along. It’s not that they can’t get married; it’s a statement of conscience,” Marriner says, adding that granting heterosexual couples those rights not available to their same-sex counterparts would be “playing favorites.”
It may not always be thus: On Thursday, Jan. 31, the New Mexico House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee approved House Joint Resolution 3, which would allow voters to weigh in on the issue of same-sex marriage on the 2014 election cycle.
The proposal, which Marriner calls “fabulous,” must first clear two other committees before it reaches the 70-member House for a vote. “I would support it 100 percent,” she says.
Until then, Marriner remains firm, citing two core principles within her faith tradition: that the nature of God is love, and the inherent worth and dignity of every person is a result of being created in God’s likeness.
“The words are not just men, not just women, not just straight people; every single person on the planet is created in likeness to God,” she says, “and that likeness to God is to be honored.”
Marriner’s wish for the state’s future is clear.
“My hope is that I will be able to act on behalf of the state of New Mexico,” she says, “and sign those marriage licenses for any couple in my congregation who wishes to formally proclaim that they want to be married and share their lives together.”
WHEN CHRIST RETURNS TO EARTH, he’ll shake his head and say, “Why did you select one group of God’s children to separate from the others and shame?
Why have you sacrificed principles and family to adhere to outworn laws of two thousand years ago? You mistakenly superimpose onto the Modern Age antiquated conventions of the emerging culture of man 100 generations past -- a painful anachronism now unnecessarily shouldered by the innocent.
I left you thinking you would take the love I shared with you to share with ALL people. Instead, you take a book of paper and ink, aged, disputed, and altered over time, and you make that book more important than LOVE itself. You deny rights to loving couples, and judge and punish them for being what God made them to be.
You single out God’s children, harmless and unsuspecting, and prevent them from enjoying friendships and comradery. You bully others into such desperation, they take their own lives. You defy reason, intuition, and emotion. You withhold love from your own child, to pray the gay away. You chant dogma that contradicts human nature, though you, too, see the injustice and humiliation you now promote. And all this you do in the name of God!
You travel a muddy road downhill in the dark.
I light a different path to a place where people treat others the way they themselves want to be treated… the place where LOVE resides. See the light ahead? Follow me.”
Truth: Conformity to fact or actuality. I always like to remind the religious about the true meaning of the word. It does no good though. But at least it reminds me.
SO VERY WELL SAID...Words of a TRUE Christian.... GOD BLESS & BE WITH YOU
The ONLY reservation I have in her signing the first certificate if/when N.M. passes an equal marriage rights amendment is what about the rest of the US citizens that still cannot get married & aren't protected by such an amendment? I understand that you could then expand that argument further, & thus, she must stop somewhere. However, we cannot vote or in ANY way control what happens in other countries. However, we can in our own country. As long as there are ANY states that are blocking same-sex couples from marrying & receiving the same benefits & freedoms afforded to heterosexual couples, then none of us are equal. I would (were I this minister) feel compelled to fight for marriage equality for ALL American same-sex couples, not just the ones from my state. But that's just me.....
Bullets are to guns what churches are to gays. Innocent babes hate nobody. It takes a certain combination of religious self-righteousness and the hateful teachings of religious leaders to bring violence to gay people. I often hear the Bible thumpers claiming that the preposterous stories in the Bible are not meant to be taken literally. No man ever believes that the Bible means exactly what it says about most things. And remember that religious leaders have been continuously editing the Bible to eliminate anything they deemed inappropriate in the original versions. It is those hateful editors that decided to leave in the awful stories about the persecution of homosexuals and likewise it is hateful religious leaders who continue to bring up this portion of their religious doctrine to their congregations creating more haters. “My church isn’t like that – you judge us all together”. We fight against all religion because religions make supernatural claims and we are scientists. All evidence must stand up against scientific peer review or it is fiction. The only evidence you offer it the same one book. It is men, not gods who compose all books. Yes, no man ever believes that the Bible means what it says. He is always convinced it says what he means.
While I admire Rev. Gail's conviction, I won't go so far as to not perform weddings in MI until all are free to marry their special person. It doesn't further convince one politician, it would punish those couples who do want to use my services but can't (and they may be avid LGBT supporters, too), and it takes earnings from my family and hurting them when they have not been unsupporting, either.