Presbyterian Church (USA) Hosts First Same-sex Wedding at National Office
- Updated Sep 09, 2015
The national office of the Presbyterian denomination hosted a same-sex wedding last week.
The wedding of Paul Kempf and Robb Gwaltney was officiated by a Presbyterian Church official in Louisville, Kentucky. About 25 people attended the ceremony, according to the Christian Post.
"Kempf has been an employee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) since 2012 and Gwaltney is a former employee who helped plan and oversee the PC(USA) move to Louisville in 1988,” said Gregg Brekke of the Presbyterian News Service.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, said the wedding was an “in-your-face” action.
"I see it as an in-your-face act designed to make a public and political statement that the PC(USA) is pro-gay marriage, alternative views be damned," said LaBerge.
"No one should be honestly shocked nor surprised by the news that the PC(USA) hosted a same-sex wedding at this national Chapel. But yes, it will further fuel the conversation in churches currently discerning their denominational future."
In 2010, the PC’s General Assembly voted to allow regional bodies to ordain noncelibate homosexuals. Then earlier this year, a supermajority of presbyteries approved an amendment that changed the denomination’s definition of marriage to that of “two people, traditionally a man and woman.”
Publication date: September 9, 2015
