The Church of Scotland has taken a significant step towards allowing ministers to conduct same-sex marriages as it apologised for historical discrimination against lesbian and gay people.
The Kirk’s general assembly, meeting in Edinburgh, instructed officials to consider changes to church law that would allow ministers to preside over same-sex-marriage ceremonies.
But despite strong support in the church’s governing body, it is likely to be several years before the first same-sex marriage is conducted by a Kirk minister. The necessary legal changes will first be brought to next year’s assembly.
Same-sex marriage globally
Same-sex marriage is currently legal in about 20 countries around the world, 13 of which are in Europe:
• In April 2001 the Netherlands became the first country in the world to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in a civil ceremony.
• Twelve European countries followed: Belgium, Britain (except Northern Ireland), Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
• Some European countries only allow gay men to enter into civil partnerships, including Austria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy and the Czech Republic.
• In October 2014 Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to authorise this kind of civil union.
• Canada authorised same-sex marriage in June 2005.
• In June 2015 a historic supreme court decision legalised gay marriage across the US.
• Mexico’s federal capital led the way in Latin America towards civil unions in 2007 and full marriages in 2009. Same sex marriages are also legal in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Colombia.
• South Africa is the only country in Africa where gay people can legally marry.
• In the Middle East, Israel recognises gay marriages performed elsewhere, though such marriages are not performed in Israel itself.
• New Zealand passed a law in April 2013 allowing gay marriage.
The Scottish Episcopal church is due to vote in a fortnight on whether to change its laws to allow same-sex church weddings, a move which would put it odds with the Church of England and could invite de facto sanctions by the international Anglican communion. Last year the US Episcopal church was disciplined after it permitted clergy to conduct same-sex weddings.
The Kirk assembly called on leaders to “take stock of its history of discrimination at different levels and in different ways against gay people and to apologise individually and corporately and seek to do better”. There was no opposition from the assembly to the proposed apology.
A report from the Theological Forum, ordered by last year’s assembly, concluded there were not “sufficient theological grounds to deny nominated individual ministers and deacons the authority to preside at same-sex marriages”.
However, it added that the “conscientious refusal” of other ministers and deacons to preside at such marriages must be protected.
It spoke of “constrained difference”, an acknowledgement of the profound divisions in the church over sexuality, while upholding fundamental doctrines.
It went on: “For example, we do not believe that extension of marriage to two persons of the same gender opens the door to a rights-based argument that marriage should be extended to polyamorous unions. Nor, for example, do we think the door should be open to marriage with robots. Consent within a covenanted relationship between two persons remains at the heart of our understanding.”
Introducing the report, the Very Rev Prof Iain Torrance, the forum’s convener, told the assembly: “Few if any of us are on either extreme of this struggle to interpret scripture. Almost all of us are somewhere on a spectrum of interpretation and we switch up and down that spectrum as ... we try to apply scripture to the concrete messiness of living.”
Protestants, he added, “do not understand marriage as a sacrament but as a covenant voluntarily entered into by two persons who bind themselves to each other in a series of vows”.
A debate lasting more than three hours heard from supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage. One minister, the Rev Peter Johnston, said he wanted to be able to officiate at the wedding of his lesbian daughter as well as that of his three straight children. At the moment the Kirk door was shut, he said.
But another minister, the Rev Dale London, said homosexual activity was “contrary to the word of God … it is sinful”. He added: “We cannot call good what God has called evil.”
Scotland has allowed same-sex couples to marry since 2014. However, different denominations can decide whether or not to participate.
