St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow will conduct wedding ceremony for couple from England, provost says.
The first same-sex marriage at an Anglican church in the UK is expected to take place in Glasgow later this summer.St Mary’s Cathedral has become the first in the country to be given permission to conduct gay weddings, a month after the Scottish Episcopal church general synod voted overwhelmingly to allow its churches to host the ceremonies.
The vote resulted in canon law being changed to remove a doctrinal clause stating that marriage was between a man and a woman. On Thursday the Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary’s, became the first Anglican celebrant to be registered to perform same-sex weddings.
(The Scottish Episcopal church general synod voted to allow its churches to host same-sex wedding ceremonies. Photograph: Marc Mueller/EPA)
Holdsworth said the cathedral had already had one booking from a same-sex couple in England who could not get married in their local Church of England parish. “We are glad to be able to welcome them and expect there will be many others who will follow them,” he said.
The congregation at St Mary’s were active in the campaign to allow gay marriage in Scotland. “I’m a gay man myself and so initially for me it was about coming out and then, having come out, it was about helping the church to come out,” said Holdsworth.
“The church was always a place that was good for me when I came out. It was a very supportive place and it seemed to me important to get the church to tell the truth that it was accepting about people in same-sex relationships and then gradually members in this congregation started to help in the push for gay marriage.”
Holdsworth said the cathedral was one of the most beautiful church buildings in the country and that the surrounding area was “buzzing”. “It’s a fantastic place to get married,” he said.
Following the vote in June, the bishop Andy Lines from Gafcon, which represents conservative Anglicans worldwide, told a press conference that the church was “not at liberty to tamper with [God’s] words” and that he would offer support to those “who wish to maintain the authority of the Bible”.
Despite opposition within the Anglican church to the Scottish decision, Holdsworth said he had encountered no opposition to the move from the local community. “People sometimes say that support for gay marriage is the biggest change in social attitudes that has ever been measured,” he said.
“People used to disagree with gay relationships quite strongly and now they support them very strongly. All the time as we’ve been pushing for more and more equality, we’ve been seeing people becoming more accepting.”
He said the move to allow same-sex couples to marry in Scottish Anglican churches was not just important to gay people. “I think there are lots of straight people who want to get married in churches that are practising equality,” he said. “I find that the more that I go on about equality for gay folk, the more I get young families coming here because they want their kids to grow up in that kind of church.”
Source: theguardian.com
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