Ministers Charged with Marrying NY Same-Sex Couples

Same Sex Marriage Forum

Two Unitarian Universalist ministers were charged Monday for marrying 13 same-sex couples, thrusting the clergy into the legal battle over gay marriage in New York.
Ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with multiple counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions.

Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams said before Monday’s charges were handed down it would be more difficult considering charges against clergy as opposed to an elected official because the clergy had not sworn to uphold the law.

The pair performed the weddings March 6.

The ministers’ lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, was unaware of the charges when contacted by The Associated Press and declined immediate comment.

Since West joined San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as the only elected officials to marry gay couples, the issue has spread rapidly across the country. Courts, legislatures and elected officials are wrestling with what supporters say is a matter of civil rights and opponents call an attack on the time-honored institution of marriage.

West married 25 gay and lesbian couples Feb. 27 in a highly publicized marathon ceremony. West is now under a court order temporarily halting the weddings.

The charges carry a fine of $25 to $500 or jail time.

Source: AP

This is one of the most ridiculous charges I have ever seen!

Any Church should be able to marry(it is just a word in this
case because it is a religious term as opposed to a legal term)(or it will be when this is all sorted out)anybody it feels like marrying.

I think the problem stems from the fact that marriage should
have absolutely nothing to do with state or federal functions.

I believe that all rights and benefits from the state or federal
government should only bestowed upon something referred to
as CIVIL UNIONS which would be licensed only by the state.

marriages are the domain of Churches and other organizations which find it important to make some distinction between
state civil unions and marriages (which they may believe have
some connection to religion or god but has nothing to do with
the Constitution of the United States of America.)
It is not the duty of the government to define religious criteria
or procedures for what has always been known as marriage.

This would also mean that states would not have to honor other marriage licenses (from out of state churches) but they would have to honor any certificates of union from another state.

And since any church can (if it wants) certify marriages thereby
giving gay couples (who would like) to use the term MARRIAGE can do so.

The right wing Christian coalition(I hate to use the word Christian in a sentence like that since Jesus (I believe)
would have nothing to do with these mean spirited people)think that churches that agree with them should be the only ones able to marry people.

(even when churches refused to marry mixed race couples
50 years ago, nobody arrested ministers of other churches
that did marry them!)

I agree, I think separation of church and state should be not allowed. They are two completely different things.

Marriage is not necessarily a religious issue only. It's a social issue, shared by religious and non-religious people alike. There are a lot of people who disagree with you, and not all of them are involved in religion.

When it comes to social issues of a country, the government has the right to get involved, otherwise, more than half of our Constitution should be done away with.

Also, the arrests / fines / punishment are not based on religion. They are based on someone breaking a law of the land. So, the ministers and the mayors, and everyone else who decides to violate a law, gets punished. Rightfully so. If they don't like the law, then they can go through the proper channels to get it changed. If they can't do that for whatever reason they have, then they get to suffer the fate of taking the law into their own hands.

They weren't punished because they are ministers marrying someone. They were punished because they are people breaking a law.

Benyamin, if that's how you feel laws should be challenged, then by all means, do so. Just remember there are end results that may not be favorable for that approach.

I also know if the laws are passed that allow same-sex marriages, those that oppose the laws will most likely break them to prove a point. They too will suffer the fate of their law-breaking, even if it was to prove a point.

I know I will be a lawbreaker on the day anyone creates a law that violates God's laws. So, perhaps some day I will end up in jail too. I'm not talking just about same-sex marriages here either. I'm talking about Sunday laws, God's name in public.. etc. Daniel, a devoted servant of God, always prayed while facing out of one of his windows. Some people decided they would get the king to pass a law that made it illegal for Daniel, and others, to pray to God. Which they did. Daniel ignored the law and continued to pray to God, even though he was putting his life in jeaprody. He was put in a lion's den as his punishment, and God rescued him.

If I am going to be forced to consider same-sex marriages as equal to the marriage God established, I will become a lawbreaker, as I do not believe they are equal, nor never can be considered equal. So, I understand your approach to showing legislature is wrong. I too will be following your approach if America tries to change something that has nothing to do with equal rights.

Mystic, our news station did a documentary on how the Blacks feel about gays using this "same-sex" issue as a Civil Rights issue. They were offended by the comparison.

This has nothing to do with lynching, or equal rights, or anything you say, but then again, you can't possibly understand why because you don't agree with the Bible, so I'm not even going to try to explain it. There is absolutely no way some people will ever be able to comprehend why most Christians (and Muslims and others) don't accept this. Yes, there are Christians that don't see anything wrong with it, but then again, the Bible warns of those people too.

by Keith Peters, Washington, D.C., correspondent

The Congressional Black Caucus is questioning attempts to link the civil rights struggle of the '60s to today's push for special rights for homosexuals.

African-Americans in Congress are telling homosexual activists not to equate attempts to create same-sex "marriage" with the civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are worried about a backlash from their constituents after the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., linked the two issues in a message delivered at a Jackson, Miss., town hall meeting.

"The civil rights movement was more of a movement for the equal rights of all Americans: education, voting rights, jobs," Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., told The Washington Times. "Whereas gay rights in terms of gay marriage is a movement for a special group of Americans. So I would not compare civil rights with gay rights."

Neither would Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who said the first time he heard a comparison between homosexual activism and the civil rights battles of the 60s was in Kerry's speech.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, of Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said lawmakers and black voters alike are right to object to comparisons like the one Kerry made.

"We were discriminated against simply because we were black, not because of who we had sex with," Peterson said. "The homosexuals are just jumping aboard the civil rights movement for their own personal gain."

Star Parker, spokeswoman for the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, said blacks' unhappiness about the comparison could cost Democrats.

"What's happening right now is that the black community itself is just finding out that the homosexual movement has been using the civil rights movement to (promote its) agenda," she explained. "And the black community is saying 'Absolutely not.' "

Black families have been undermined by the politics of victimization for too long, she added, resulting in an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births and other forms of family breakdown.

"This is not the time for homosexuals to insist that we rewrite the rules of marriage," Parker said. "We have to build our families back up, and that means bringing back traditions and moral stability."

The comparison of the struggle of blacks in the 50s & 60s is certainly valid. Just because your local news station ran a report that some blacks are appalled by the comparison doesn't change the fact that the plight of gay rights is VERY similar to the civil rights movement half a century ago. It took over a hundred years after slavery was abolished for the last state in the union to finally lift the BAN on interracial marriage. Hmm, anyone else in the news today dealing with a BAN on marriage?