When I Officiated at a Same-Sex Wedding, I Lost My Evangelical Family.

And I’m Okay With That: A Journey from Prejudice to Pride

Photo by Kris MacKain — Private collection

I told her, “You may now kiss your wife.”

That embrace between two women at their wedding ceremony was the kiss of death to my affiliation with my Evangelical past.

It was also a sign of my newfound faith, which celebrated love as love and underscored the importance of human rights, inspiring hope for change.

Free at Last

For over a decade, I’d officiated at non-religious weddings in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys in California. In June 2008, during the first week of same-sex marriage becoming legal in California, I was asked to perform a wedding for the lesbian daughter of one of our African American friends.

When it came to the final declaration in the ceremony, I called out, “I have been waiting for this day for years. By the authority vested in me by the state of California, I declare you wife and wife. You may now kiss each other.”

However, today, I would have added, “And by the still-higher authority of a loving Presence, I pronounce you wife and wife.”

God had blessed their marital union.

The audience’s reaction was a show of support for this joyous celebration of love, with whoops and hollers. The ceremony was a testament to the changing times, the growing acceptance of diversity, and the undeniable power of love to triumph over prejudice.

It was a big deal when same-sex marriage became legal in California. Couples who had lived and loved together for years could seal their relationship in a legal ceremony. Their adopted children could now live with their married parents.

That ceremony was a pivotal moment that validated what was spiritually important to me. Also, a former Baptist pastor who had to leave his church due to his evolving faith based on direct experience with the Eternal One and not church dogma refuted the church’s discriminatory practices like the rejection of Same-sex love and marriage.

It was a moment of personal growth and transformation, demonstrating that love is a human right and encouraging others to confront biases and grow spiritually.

The Last Nail in the Coffin

After officiating at the wedding and sharing a picture of the ceremony on my wife’s social media, we faced a backlash from the Evangelical community. Some people unfriended her, and one pastor even asked, ‘Will you marry dogs at your next ceremony?’

So much for “You will know we are Christians by our love.”

Their censure, while hurtful, was not surprising. I was already on the outs with Evangelical pastors in the community. Previously, I’d been censured when, as a practicing psychologist, I’d rejected “conversion” therapy of gay men by their congregations.

Obscure biblical passages such as Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 have been used to distort understanding, prompting us to question traditional interpretations.

Here, a man lying with another man (sexually) instead of his wife is an “abomination.” In reality, this passage prohibits adultery, not sexual orientation. The Bible’s word for abomination in Hebrew has many other applications, from not eating pork to trimming a beard.

My action that day was in stark contrast to my earlier beliefs as a Baptist minister in South Africa in the late 1960s, when marriage was for Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. I was so ignorant about homosexuality and gay marriage.

Part of my bias was my lack of a relationship with any of my Same-sex brothers and sisters, showing how personal connections can foster understanding and acceptance.

It also liberated me to make the shift toward accepting same-sex relationships. Commenting on the need for a personal relationship with Same-sex couples, Medium writer Paul Walker puts it this way: “Yeah, it makes me wonder if those people screaming about gays in the Church have ever actually met a gay couple.”

That wedding was an outward sign of my religious metamorphosis. It was the final nail in the coffin of my life as an Evangelical pastor and the decent burial of my myopic past.

The ceremony continued my move into greater diversity of thought and acceptance of other ways of being in my community. It was another answer to my recurring prayer: “Lead me away from biased beliefs to faith.”

Parts of this posting have been excerpted from my memoir “Hearts Wide Open: Leaving Religion, Finding Faith,” available on Amazon.