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African-Americans, clergy, and African-American clergy have been some of the real powerhouse groups that have been instrumental in making marriage equality a reality in the District of Columbia.
“Love has won out over fear,” said Rev. Dennis Wiley, co-pastor at Covenant Baptist Church and a co-chair of DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality. “Equality has won out over prejudice. Faith has won out over despair.”
“We rejoice with the loving couples who have worked so hard and waited so long for this opportunity to seal their commitment,” said Rev. Christine Wiley, co-pastor at Covenant Baptist Church and also a co-chair of DC Clergy United. “It’s a great day for Washington.”
“In Washington, D.C., nearly 200 clergy chose to stand on the side of love,” DC Clergy United co-chair Rev. Robert Hardies, senior pastor at All Souls Church, Unitarian, said. ”We represent many faiths and many communities, but we share a vision for our city. And today we share the joyful news that many loving couples in our congregations will soon be getting married.”
While clergy, members of Congress, Mayor Fenty, city council members and regular citizens rejoice with us tonight, I am privately rejoicing for the very fact of each and every one of them. I don’t know any of them – not even one of them. I can’t even know how many there are or what they did to help. But together they acted on principle and have removed a major legal obstacle to liberty and the pursuit of happiness for me and my brothers and sisters in DC. I am awed and humbled.
DC Clergy United for Marriage’s press release and statement are below the fold.
Related: Pro-equality clergy greatly outnumber the anti-gay variety in Washington, D.C.
DC CLERGY REJOICE AT MARRIAGE EQUALITY MILESTONE IN NATION’S CAPITALCity Religious Leaders Celebrate with Same-Sex Couples as Barriers to Legal Marriage Fall
Members of the multiracial, multifaith DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality are celebrating with same-sex couples who will soon be permitted to marry legally in the nation’s capital. Marriage license applications will be available to same-sex couples on Wednesday morning.
“Love has won out over fear,” said Rev. Dennis Wiley, co-pastor at Covenant Baptist Church and a co-chair of DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality. “Equality has won out over prejudice. Faith has won out over despair.”
“We rejoice with the loving couples who have worked so hard and waited so long for this opportunity to seal their commitment,” said Rev. Christine Wiley, co-pastor at Covenant Baptist Church and also a co-chair of DC Clergy United. “It’s a great day for Washington.”
DC Clergy United co-chair Rev. Robert Hardies, senior pastor at All Souls Church, Unitarian, celebrated the historic role that clergy leaders have played in the effort to bring legal marriage equality to the District of Columbia.
“In Washington, D.C., nearly 200 clergy chose to stand on the side of love,” Hardies said. ”We represent many faiths and many communities, but we share a vision for our city. And today we share the joyful news that many loving couples in our congregations will soon be getting married.”
Members of DC Clergy United for Marriage played a visible role in the marriage equality debate, holding press conferences, testifying at D.C. Council hearings on marriage equality legislation, and challenging anti-equality leaders who claimed to represent people of faith in the District of Columbia.
In December, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed marriage equality legislation that was passed overwhelmingly by the Council of the District of Columbia. With the expiration of the congressional review period to which all D.C. Council legislation is subject, same-sex couples will be permitted to apply for marriage licenses beginning Wednesday morning, March 3; the first date for weddings will be March 9.
DC Clergy United for Marriage Equality released the following statement:
God is love and love is for everyone. In this spirit we have raised our voices in the struggle for the right and freedom to marry. In this spirit we now rejoice with all the couples in our communities and congregations who will soon be able to be married.We represent many faiths, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. We represent religious institutions in every ward in the District. We have worked together over many years for peace and justice. We are grateful to have played our part in bringing greater justice to the people of D.C. and the loving same-sex couples in our congregations.
We congratulate the activists who have worked diligently for many years to bring marriage equality to D.C. We thank the councilmembers and mayor who supported equality and who stood firm against threats and misinformation.
We encourage those who expressed heartfelt disagreement on this issue to respect the decisions of our elected officials and courts. We firmly support the unquestioned right of every religious leader and congregation to decide whether or not to bless same-sex marriages. And we ask that they respect the rights of those clergy and congregations who will soon joyfully extend the blessing of marriage to loving same-sex couples.
7 Comments
REAL Christians aren’t bigots….As these distinguished members of the clergy demonstrate. It’s great that they’re standing up and being counted, like the GUTSY clergy in Uganda.
Yes, But…Yes, we have some wonderfully supportive clergy and citizens of all races, creeds, and colors in D.C. And some of our African American leaders have been terrific, including Mayor Fenty, Council Chairman Gray, and Councilmember Thomas.
But let’s not kid ourselves. There is a reason that Councilmembers Alexander and Barry voted against marriage equality. They feared the wrath of voters and influential ministers in their overwhelmingly African American wards. Councilmemebers from the other wards felt much less community pressure to vote “no.”
African American allies tend to be some of our strongest, most articulate, most influential allies, in place after place. At the same time, African American opponents tend to be some of our most vicious opponents, from Rev. Jackson in D.C. (or Maryland, where his really lives) to Rev. Hutcherson in Seattle.
The ugly protests in D.C. consisted largely of African American crowds rallied by African American ministers–and Councilmember Barry. Yes, the Catholic Church also tried to bully the Council, but the Catholic Church has no significant influence in D.C., as events made crystal clear. While not AT ALL representing the views of all African Americans, the activists leading the opposition to marriage equality in D.C. were, in fact, almost uniformly African American. The N.O.M. bigots arrived on the scene only at the very end of a long process.
I can tell you that Hutchersonis not the worst of the worst in WA. He’s just one among a crowd of otherwise white bigots who are all equally vile. As for anti-gay protesters and activists here in WA, it is the Slavic (all white) crowd that was far and away the most menacing and vile in their words and attitudes. The color of the worst of the worst is not uniform from place to place. What they seem to mostly have in common no matter the state or city is a strong adherence to a radical-right hate-mongering form of religion. It’s not black people in those DC wards that’s the problem, it’s the hate-mongering religious people who there are mostly black, but here are mostly white.
Lurleeen, I must agree.It was the mostly white LDS church members who orchestrated the Yes on 8 campaign in CA as well. In VA, you see that it is the white Republican hate machine that keeps its citizens in the backwater of the civil rights struggle. When you look at the statistics, it’s religion that is keeping us from equality, not color.
DCs Human Rights Act laid the groundworkfor Marriage Equality. If it hadn’t been for those forward looking legislators who passed the many pieces of legislation for human rights, this day for marriage equality would never have happened. TO ALL THOSE IN STATES WHERE MARRIAGE EQUALITY IS NOT A REALITY: PLEASE READ DCs HUMAN RIGHTS ACT AND GET SIMILAR LEGISLATION PASSED IN YOUR STATE.
Is this why OBAMA has not joined a DC Church???Cannot find one NOT in support of SSM?
I agree, but…Part of the explanation in Washington State is that, unless I’m mistaken, it has a tiny black population to begin with. I’ll defer to you on Hutcherson. I was watching from afar.
I posted my comment because I really meant the warning about not kidding ourselves. I have a sense that there’s some political correctness pressure–a derogatory term I usually don’t use–to erase any consideration of racial correlations to anti-gay views. I say we shouldn’t kid ourselves because, while the race-blind stance may be good public relations, I think it’s dangerous to ignore a potential correlation if you’re, say, strategizing about a ballot initiative. Of course, it isn’t blackness that causes anti-gay bias. It has to do with the traditionalist disposition of lots of black clergy and the influence of the black church in the community. But these aren’t factors one can safely just ignore in a place like D.C. The first issue that comes up in D.C. in connection with any gay issue is how to manage the tension between a black politician who probably wants to do the right thing and his or her pressure from some outspoken black ministers with large congregations in their wards. Your point is well taken that you may have the same dynamic elsewhere with white politicians. That dynamic, I think I can fairly say, is completely absent in D.C.
My point about being some of harshest critics was a little different. I do have a sense that in addition to the ordinary sense of entitlement that religion gives anti-gay clergy to aggressive attack gay people, relationships, and proposals, the black clergy who are anti-gay seem to feel an additional exemption from civility as a result of their status as members of a historically abused minority.
I generally agree with your post’s celebration of the diversity of support for marriage equality in D.C. I just wanted to add a caveat that we shouldn’t think there’s no race-correlation there at all, unfortunately.