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The charge alleges that Spahr is “in violation of her ordination vows and the (Presbyterian Church USA’s) constitution by performing a same-sex marriage,” Runyeon said.
The Presbyterian Church constitution (W-4.9001) specifically states that marriage can be a covenant only between a man and a woman.
The highest Presbyterian court — the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly — ruled in 2000 that ministers may bless same-sex unions, but cannot confuse or equate them with marriage.
Spahr, 62, a resident of San Rafael, CA, is minister director of That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS), which works for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) Presbyterians in the life of the church, including their ordination as officers.
She acknowledged taking part in co-officiating the ceremony.
“If this helps people see LGBT people as persons, that we do make commitments, that we do have dreams, then I’m grateful,” Spahr said of the charge. “If this gives our denomination an opportunity to be in conversation about healthy marriage or healthy relationships and what they might look like, then I’m grateful.”
An investigating committee filed the charge with the presbytery’s PJC after Spahr’s participation in the same-sex wedding was brought to the attention of the regional governing body last March in an email sent by the Rev. James Berkley, a member of Seattle Presbytery and the Issues Ministry Director for Presbyterians for Renewal, a conservative renewal group that opposes the ordination of gays and lesbians.
In his email, Berkley included a brief article posted on the TAMFS Web site announcing the marriage of two of its members, Dr. Douglas Potter and Greg Partridge, companions for 20 years.
Spahr was listed in the article as assisting the Rev. John Mayor, a Unitarian chaplain from Canada, in performing the ceremony in Vineland, Ontario, on Feb. 28. Same-sex marriage is legally recognized in the province of Ontario.
Runyeon said she wrote the allegations about Spahr’s alleged role in the same-sex ceremony and forwarded them to the investigating committee after receiving Berkley’s email.
Runyeon said that Berkley’s email quoted a 1991 “authoritative interpretation” of the PC(USA)’s constitution affirmingthat “a Christian marriage performed with the Directory for Worship can only involve a covenant between a woman and a man, it would not be proper for a minister of the Word and Sacrament to perform a same-sex union ceremony that the minister determines to be the same as a marriage ceremony.”
Berkley also cited a General Assembly PJC ruling stating that ministers should instruct same-sex couples that the service to be conducted does not constitute a marriage ceremony and should not be presented as such.
“He (Berkley) did not want to be the one that wrote the allegations . . . which is why I was the one who ended up actually writing for the investigating committee, the initial complaint,” Runyeon said. “But as I say, once we heard what he had to say, and he had put it in the email, which in effect is in writing, it was incumbent upon us to do the investigation.”
Presbytery members were informed of the disciplinary charge during a regular presbytery meeting Nov. 19.
“I think that the presbytery is being responsible and doing what they must do,” said Berkley, a former associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue. “It’s no fun. Nobody likes the idea of this needing to be done. But when there is direct disobedience of what we as Presbyterians have decided are the boundaries of our practice, a presbytery, out of love, has to stand firm.”
Because judicial proceedings at this stage are supposed to be confidential, Spahr was not named to protect her identify when the charge was read during the stated clerk’s report.
However, Spahr, who was in attendance, announced during the meeting that she was the unnamed minister being charged.
Spahr told the Presbyterian News Service that she was following the teachings of Jesus by marrying the two men, both longtime members of Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY.
“We’re talking about welcoming,” said Spahr, who also later co-officiated a “service of blessing and celebration” for the two men at the Rochester church. “We’re talking about my faith in Christ and who I think Christ is.”
Five of the presbytery court’s seven members would have to vote to convict Spahr. She could be acquitted; rebuked; rebuked with supervision and rehabilitation; temporarily excluded from office; or permanently removed from ordained ministry.
Spahr said the church is discriminating against homosexuals and she feels an obligation to continue pressing for full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church.
“I’m very conscious of this thing that somehow or the other we are second-class,” Spahr said. “So I’m even more mindful of an oppressive system in place. So (the challenge) is how to be a better pastor, how to be a better person to work even more with LGBT people to make sure that the support is there.”
Spahr was called in 1991 as co-pastor of Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, but the call was invalidated by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in November 1992.
Even without a call, the Rochester church invited her as a “lesbian evangelist” and established That All May Freely Serve to support her ministry in 1993 in partnership with Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon, CA.
Since then, Spahr has been traveling the country mustering support for the ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians, along the way building a network of regional groups to help in the effort.
Spahr is one of at least two Presbyterian ministers in recent years to face charges pertaining to marrying same-sex couples.
The Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken, former pastor of the Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, OH, lost his job and membership in the church after the Presbytery of Cincinnati overwhelmingly voted to remove him on June 16, 2003.
Van Kuiken appealed the decision and the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Covenant ruled in February that the presbytery erred in removing Van Kuiken while he was appealing a previous presbytery decision. However, Van Kuiken never applied for reinstatement.
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