Church service celebrates marriage equality

It was a service in celebration of marriage equality, but also a service lamenting how long it took — and continues to take — for Christian churches to recognize marriage equality for gays and lesbians.

About 45 people attended the Thursday evening service to celebrate marriage equality in Nevada at Christ Church Episcopal, 2000 S. Maryland Parkway, and while acknowledging that some Christian churches are more welcoming to gay and lesbian couples than others, the service also acknowledged that the Christian community still has a long way to go.

Bishop Dan Edwards of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada presided during the service, which included Scripture readings and prayers referencing Harvey Milk, Margarethe Cammermeyer and other gay and lesbian people who “have struggled for equality,” Matthew Shepard and others “who have died because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” people “who live with HIV/AIDS and those who care for them,” and gay and lesbian families, “that they may be united in love and strengthened to resist prejudice and ignorance.”

In his sermon, the Rev. J. Barry Vaughn, rector of Christ Church Episcopal, discussed traditional Christian theology’s separation of the spirit and the physical and how, until only recently, the Christian church, at large, “at best only tolerated gay and lesbian people.”

Although some Christian churches have become more aware of and more welcoming to gays and lesbians, Vaughn said the Christian church’s delay in having done so resulted in persecution, pain and even death — including in the form of neglect during the AIDS epidemic — to gay and lesbian people.

Vaughn said he even wonders if there would have been an AIDS epidemic if the church had “embraced gay and lesbian people.”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Now, Vaughn is permitted to “bless gay and lesbian couples. So, thank you, I guess. But I also have to ask the (Christian) church why you were so late to the party?”

“I’d like to be able to say to the Christian Church, ‘I forgive you,’ ” Vaughn said, “but I’m not quite there yet.”

Becky Hansen and Mary Berkheiser were among those attending the service. They were married in March 2013 but have been together for almost 30 years.

Hansen said that, during the service, she thought about her mother, who was “adamantly opposed” to her daughter being gay.

And, she said, “it was hard for me to accept my own sexual orientation. I was sort of like a fish out of water.”

“But I met Mary, and we had come to terms with each other,” Hansen said. “And she loved Mary. The three of us would go to movies and go out to dinner together.”

Lorell Guydon, a member of Christ Church Episcopal, said she attended the service because “I’m very interested in the rights of gays and lesbians.”

“I think it’s long overdue,” she said, after gay and lesbian people having been “forced in the closet, and especially by the religious groups, followers of Jesus. Jesus loves all of us unconditionally, and I am in support of gays and lesbians, and I always want to show that support by my presence, by my words, and any way that I can be supportive.”

Edwards said the service was designed to be “a celebration of the progress that has been made, but also an acknowledgment of the hurt and wrong that has happened up to this point, and recognition that it is an ongoing struggle to heal that relationship.”

It also serves, he said, as a reminder that “built into our baptism vows” is the imperative to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

Priests within the statewide Nevada Episcopal diocese are authorized to bless same-sex unions, and Edwards said blessing services have occurred throughout the diocese, including at its more rural parishes.

He recalled that, after Episcopal clergy throughout the diocese were notified — and, he said, “no one had to do it; they were invited and authorized” — he heard from “only one priest who said that he would not be doing it. He was in Las Vegas.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.