United Church of Christ backs gay marriage

Published: 2005-07-11

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The United Church of Christ's general synod, meeting in Atlanta, endorsed a resolution supporting same-sex marriage July 4. In doing so the 1.3 million-member denomination became the first mainline Christian church in the nation to formally reject the traditional definition of marriage as the union only of a man and a woman. Father Arthur Kennedy, executive director of the U.S. Catholic bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, said that while individual congregations of the United Church of Christ had supported gay marriage and some of its ministers had blessed such unions a decision by the entire church body "makes for a very different situation than before." He said that ecumenically it will have consequences for Catholic-United Church of Christ relations similar to those created in Catholic-Anglican relations when the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, decided to ordain an openly gay bishop.

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