Faith Leaders Discuss Outreach On D.C. Gay Marriage

Groups including Bilerico D.C., The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club and The Log Cabin Republicans of Metro D.C. sponsored a community forum on gay marriage and the faith community Wednesday night at All Souls Church in Adams Morgan. The panel featured Episcopal priest Rev. Monique Ellison, D.C. For Marriage Chair Michael Crawford and ACLU attorney Sharon McGowan.

The forum addressed engaging churches that support gay marriage as well as people of faith in the African-American community in preparation for a full marriage bill, expected to be taken up by the D.C. Council this year.

Opposition to such a bill is likely to be well-funded, and to come from national religious sources. However, local opponents are already beginning to emerge, like Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Maryland’s Hope Christian Church, who Crawford (who is black) called “the black face of the white right.”

“People of faith have to speak up,” said Rev. Ellison. “The language of faith is being co-opted to exclude a whole class of people. And as a lesbian person of faith who is African-American, I know that there is no need for a ‘civil war.’” The "civil war" reference was of course an allusion to Ward 8 D.C. Council member Marion Barry's recent comments on the subject.

Rev. Ellison responded to several questions about how to engage religious people who may want to support gay friends and relatives, but who “are genuinely troubled” by their church’s teachings on homosexuality and marriage.

“We need to listen to what exactly those concerns are,” she said. “We need to let them ask questions and be courageous enough to be vulnerable.” She pointed out that some fears, like the idea that churches would be forced to perform same-sex weddings against their beliefs, are based in distortions. “Churches are not forced to perform weddings of people who have been divorced, for example,” she said.