DC: How One Black Church Came to Accept Marriage Equality

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon a couple of years ago, we took our places in front of the altar at Covenant Baptist Church, just as we had countless times before in our more than 20 years as partners in ministry. We had been united in holy matrimony ourselves in the same spot where we now stood to unite others. As the couple walked down the aisle, we recalled the previous evening’s rehearsal, when we commended all the participants for their courage and prayed that God would be in our midst at the ceremony. When we pronounced the couple “partners for life,” we felt our prayers had been answered. It was the same feeling we had experienced so many times before when asking for God’s blessing of the union of a man and a woman. Only this time, the union was of a man and a man. Our church is the first and only traditional black church in the District of Columbia to perform same-sex unions. We conducted our first two union ceremonies, one gay and one lesbian, in the summer of 2007. The rapid political developments that followed in our nation and our city have made us optimistic that by the summer of 2010, same-sex nuptials will be not only blessed by churches but also sanctioned by law in the District. Full Story from Delaware Online: http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20091223/OPINION16/91222023/1004/OPINION/-Gay-marriage-in-our-black-church

Click here for gay marriage resources in Washington, DC.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook - just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you'll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We're also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.