US Presbyterian cleric cleared in gay marriage flap

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The highest court of the U.S. Presbyterian Church has lifted a censure placed on a retired minister for presiding over two same-sex unions, the church announced on Tuesday.

The ruling said the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, an activist for gay and lesbian causes who lives in San Rafael, California, performed "ceremonies" and not actual marriages in two instances in 2004 and 2005. Both cases involved lesbian couples.

"A same-sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage" under the laws of the 2.3 million member church, said the ruling from the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church

U.S.A.

Spahr had been found guilty of performing gay marriages and rebuked "for doing that which by definition cannot be done," the panel said.

"One cannot characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister ... and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes," it said.

Spahr served a "validated ministry charged with caring for members of the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community and reported regularly to her presbytery about the same sex unions and 'weddings' she performed," the commission added. "These services were not described as marriages in her reports ..."

Spahr, 65, in 1992 became the first openly lesbian Presbyterian minister to be appointed a local church pastor, and she went on to preside over hundreds of gay unions.

US Presbyterian cleric cleared in gay marriage flap
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