The amendment that protects religious institutions from obligations to recognize same-sex marriages helped secure the passage of the marriage equality bill through the New York State Senate, but now has religious institutions in the Village, and throughout the state, grappling with how to handle the new legislation.
For the most part, religious institutions fall along ideological divides, with traditionally conservative groups continuing to prohibit gay marriages, and more progressive ones working to knit them into their normal services. Other congregations have not altered their policies because the legislation is still new and they don’t know how to respond.
Some, like the Episcopalian Grace Church, at 10th St. and Broadway, are trying to find a middle path that at once embraces the commitments L.G.B.T.Q. members of their congregation may make with one another, and maintains the distinction between those and what they see as traditional marriages between a man and a woman.
“Let’s find a way to celebrate it,” said Reverend Don Waring, rector of Grace Church. “Let’s find a way to provide all the support we can for a gay couple who intend to love each other exclusively for the rest of their lives. But let’s not try to say that it’s the same thing.”
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Complete article at The Villager : http://bit.ly/pb73bq
