Testimony on Same-Gender Marriage

This is testimony prepared for delivery to the New Hampshire Senate on April 15, 2009.

Honored Senators, Fellow Citizens

I am Rev. Mary Wellemeyer, Parish Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester. Unitarians and Universalists have had congregations in New Hampshire since the early nineteenth century. We are not large, but we have deep roots. Among our nation's founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were Unitarians; Benjamin Rush, another signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a Universalist. There are twenty-two congregations representing today's unified movement of Unitarian Universalism in New Hampshire today. Several members of the legislature are members of Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Our religious tradition has long recognized that some among us by nature turn toward romantic love and partnership with others of the same gender. Because we affirm the value of settled, long-term, relationships in our communities, and because we value the people who choose settled, long-term relationships with partners of the same gender, Unitarian Universalist ministers have been performing ceremonies of union for same-gender couples since the 1970's.

The present legal climate where states distinguish between civil unions and marriages is no less confusing to me as a religious professional than the previous arrangement where same-gender couples had no legal status. What we have now is better for the couples, but still difficult for me as clergy. For years, we Unitarian Universalist ministers understood that the ceremonies of holy union we performed were religious only, not backed by the force of law. And yet, we were inclined to call them “weddings,” with the resulting status of the couple a “religious marriage.” I still perform religious weddings for same-gender couples and say of the couples who are so joined that they are “religiously married”, although in terms of the law they are joined in this odd category called civil union.

I find myself thinking, “why can't they just be married?” There's a gap between those who are qualified for a religious marriage in our tradition and those who are qualified for a civil marriage in the state of New Hampshire. I declare this morning that my confusion and frustration stems from an abridgement of free exercise of religion for the well-established, mainstream religious community I serve. There may be other ways to solve this problem legally, but one of the most straightforward is the one before you today: make marriage legal for committed couples of the same gender.

Please: I ask you to take action to align the religious practice of those traditions that accept same-gender couples as qualified for marriage with the civil practice of marriage. Let those whom God has joined together not be relegated to a kind of not-quite marriage by the State of New Hampshire.

Easter, again

I haven't been paying much attention to this blog lately, but maybe Easter is a good time to begin again. My life is moving in a different direction, and at this season, the pace is accelerating -- there are things to do and deadlines to meet to make myself ready to leave Manchester and become an intentional interim minister. I'm excited and energized by the prospect!

The blog started as a way to keep in touch when I was on sabbatical in spring of 2007, and has shifted emphasis along the way, but now I'm back in pilgrimage mode, this time entering on a project to be a kind of 21st century circuit rider. I see this as a return to my original intention, to keep in touch as I travel and to record what I learn. Two years ago at Easter I was in San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico, experiencing the traditional ceremonies that mark this Christian high holy day in a rather traditional place. There were a crowd of people who followed the procession of Christ carrying the cross, many dressed in black, on Good Friday. Then all was festivity on Easter Sunday. This year I am again celebrating with my ambivalent congregation, lifting Christianity out of "Lo the Earth Awakes Again" with the help of Rebecca Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock, wondering why it's so hard to include Christian holidays as among the many traditions we honor. Where will I be next Easter? In the land of Unitarian Universalist ambivalence, I'm sure, but someplace different, with its own traditions and its own Easter hangups.

I'm hoping to learn much about congregations in transition, and in the process to learn about who they are and how they do church. I have ambitions to help them be their best selves in the world, overcoming old habits that keep them stuck in the past. Can that happen? Maybe sometimes. And maybe sometimes it is sufficient to be with them, love them, and do church with them more or less the way they are used to having it. I feel the season's joyance, as the hymnodist suggests, partly from the spring and partly from the liturgical calendar. New possibilites waft through my life on the fresh breeze. It is good to be alive and good to be part of this faith tradition.