The Green Street United Methodist Church, based out of North Carolina, announced it will stop preforming traditional, man-and-woman marriages until same-sex marriages are legal within the state. Here's what they had to say:
Sadly, at this time in the United Methodist Church, marriages, weddings and holy unions are limited to heterosexual couples. As our nation struggles to provide legal recognition to people in same-sex relationships and provide them the privileges allotted to opposite-sex married couples, our denomination struggles to overcome the sin of reserving these sacramental privileges for straight people only. We, the leaders of Green Street Church, see people in same-sex relationships as completely worthy of the Sacrament of Marriage. We reject any notion that they are second class citizens in the Kingdom of God.
Polls put same-sex marriage at an all time high, according to the latest study by ABC and Washington Post. Seventy percent of white, self-identified, non-evangelical people support gay marriage; 31 percent of self-described evangelicals do. Among Catholics, research shows that support has grown by 19 percent, bring it to 59 percent.
It has taken a long time for congregations of mainstream religions to speak up on the issue, and to say this particular instance isn't a big deal would be wrong. Green Street is combatting with the official doctrine of the United Methodist Church because the laws consider homosexuality contradictory to Christian teaching, and they do not agree.
At an annual convention last year in Tampa Florida, the United Methodist Church and its delegates voted against (61 percent to 39 percent) changing how their laws viewed homosexuality as "incompatible" with their beliefs.
Green Street Methodist contests this because those values, the say, are not associated with anymore in their community.
"This is just part of who we are as a church," said Katherine Skarbek, Green Street Leadership Council chair to local news reporter. "We're a welcoming community. One of our phrases we like to use on Sunday mornings is all means all. So whoever wants to come here and worship with us is welcome."
