U.S. Quakers’ Shifting Views on Same-Sex Marriage
On a spring Saturday in 1987, Bruce Grimes and Geoffrey Kaiser held a commitment ceremony. The May 2 celebration included 250 guests who gathered to witness the couple express gratitude for their 14-year relationship and pledge to be loving and faithful to each other for the rest of their lives. The men were members of Unami Meeting in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, but the ceremony took place at the nearby Gwynedd Meetinghouse to accommodate the large number of guests. About 200 of those present signed the commitment certificate, which was illustrated by the couple’s friend Verlin Miller. Grimes recounted the joyful day in a recent interview with Friends Journal. The ceremony took place during a period in U.S. history in which same-sex marriage was not legal.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell v. Hodges case that the Constitution guarantees the right to same-sex marriage. In the majority opinion, justices argued that states which prohibited same-sex marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law by making something illegal for same-sex couples that would not be unlawful for opposite sex couples. They also argued that bans on same-sex marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause by inappropriately abridging the rights of same-sex couples. The justices who concurred with the majority opinion described the right to marry as fundamental, “because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals.”
Friends Journal spoke with several U.S. Quakers who discussed affirming same-sex unions in the 1980s and 1990s, leading many meetings to adopt minutes in favor of same-sex marriage before the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized it nationwide.
Friends in Adelphi (Md.) Meeting went through a long discernment process that culminated with adopting a minute in 1991 in support of same-sex marriage. Longtime attender Mary Leonard said the meeting discussed the issue “[a]wkwardly, with lots of stumbles, retreats.” It took four years for Friends in the meeting to complete the process of discernment. Leonard said it felt more like ten years. In retrospect, she reflected that it took Quakers a full century to disavow enslaving people.
Leonard had been involved in consciousness raising about LGBTQ issues and thought the meeting needed this type of activity. There were many lesbians in the meeting, but their sexual orientation was not widely known in the congregation, according to Leonard.
Adelphi Meeting’s Ministry and Worship Committee and its Pastoral Care Committee both discussed same-sex marriage while gathering information and resources, according to member June Confer. The committees then reported to business meeting. Friends held second-hour education programs, worship sharing, and threshing sessions, Confer recalled. The meeting then considered the proposed minute, which many members and attenders supported.
Some heterosexual Friends told gay and lesbian Quakers that they were happy to have them in the meeting, but that same-sex marriage was against the Bible, Leonard recalled. An older lifelong Quaker in Adelphi Meeting stated that he had grown up believing that homosexual people were sinners. Through the process of discernment, the Friend discovered that some of his longtime Friends were homosexual, Confer recalled.
“He could, therefore, no longer paint the group with a broad brush and must reflect on his understanding,” Confer said. The Friend asked members and attenders to approve the minute, which the meeting did at the next meeting for worship for business, according to Confer.
Friends from other meetings recalled conversations in their meetings before the meeting adopted a minute that supported same-sex marriage. Georgia Lord began attending began attending Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting with her husband in 1981. Atlanta Meeting is part of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA). In the 1980s members of SAYMA were discussing same-sex marriage at a time when the yearly meeting was working on a revision of its Faith and Practice, which had a section on marriage. Friends in SAYMA were also discussing other questions of sexual morality, such as whether it was acceptable for couples to cohabit without marrying.
SAYMA asked its constituent Friends meetings to comment on Faith and Practice. Atlanta Meeting had a lot of support for same-sex marriage but had not reached consensus on the matter at the time.
In a business meeting for worship at Atlanta Meeting, a number of people explained that their image of marriage was exclusively a relationship between only one man and only one woman, Lord recalled. The majority of the meeting supported same-sex marriage. One couple in the meeting who had objected to same-sex marriage moved away, Lord explained.
One person who described same-sex marriage as “fornication” was still part of Atlanta Meeting at the time Friends were considering the minute, according to Lord. He said a minute in support of same-sex marriage would lead to his leaving the meeting. His wife did not want to leave, and he eventually returned to the community. He continues to have concerns about same-sex marriage. Some heterosexual couples in the meeting had commitment ceremonies instead of getting married to express solidarity with same-sex couples, Lord noted.
Founded in 1991, Atlanta Friends School was a new school during the period when members and attenders of the meeting were discussing same-sex marriage. The school was not under the care of the meeting, but many people who enrolled their children in the school, which had a policy of non-discrimination against gay and lesbian people, also brought their children to Atlanta Meeting. Several lesbian couples with children attended the meeting; meeting these couples and their children familiarized heterosexual Friends with same-sex partnerships.
“After a couple of years, it was like, ‘They sure look like families,’” said Lord.
Ann Arbor (Mich.) Meeting’s Committee on Gay and Lesbian Concerns began in 1987. Committee members got to know each other while planning information sessions and inviting Friends in the meeting to discuss issues, beliefs, and feelings about same-sex marriage, according to member Jan Wright.
“People were all over the map,” said Wright, noting that some people expressed the belief that the purpose of marriage is to procreate and raise children. Wright, who married at age 54 and did not consider procreation the purpose of her marriage, found this belief off-putting.
Other Friends objected to same-sex sexual activity. One Friend suggested the meeting should focus on social justice issues rather than on same-sex marriage, Wright recalled. Wright considered same-sex marriage an important social justice issue. Some Friends believed that marriage is, by definition, only between a man and a woman. Through their discernment process, Friends learned about varying perspectives, addressed misperceptions about lesbians and gay men, and changed their thinking, according to Wright.
In their consideration of the minute, Friends also learned about the importance of personal sharing, deeper community, and closeness, according to Claire Tinkerhess.
Members of the meeting believed that equality meant a single standard should apply to all couples, regardless of the partners’ genders, Wright explained. Worshipers believed there is that of God in everyone. Friends believed that couples thrive in supportive communities that encourage their love. Couples can develop their own vows and define their own relationships, according to Wright.
“Probably simplicity was why this got passed,” Wright said of the approved minute. They followed the example of Red Cedar Meeting in Lansing, Michigan, and also used printed resources from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. “We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Wright said.
Ann Arbor Meeting had a screening of an educational film and invited an openly gay staff member from American Friends Service Committee to share his experiences. The difficult process of considering the minute concluded in 1992, Wright explained. One person stood aside; another individual resigned his membership.
In the 1990s, about a third of the members of Northampton (Mass.) Meeting were lesbians, and the community had supported lesbian and gay rights from the beginning of its existence, according to David Foster, who was active in the meeting in that decade. Northampton Meeting was a preparative meeting under the care of Mt. Toby Meeting in Leverett, Massachusetts. Weddings are typically held under the care of the parent meeting in these situations. As a preparative meeting, Northampton Meeting adopted a minute saying the community would hold in its care the marriages of same-sex couples. The meeting spent most of a year drafting and seasoning the minute, Foster noted. When Northampton Meeting became its own monthly meeting in the mid-1990s, it affirmed the previous minute, according to Foster. Affirming gay and lesbian relationships came naturally to the community.
“It just seemed to be in the meeting’s DNA,” Foster said.
A lesbian couple who had married under the care of the meeting believed the minute did not include enough concrete actions that meeting members should take to support same-sex couples, according to Foster.
“To go that route was to get ahead of our leading,” said Foster of adding concrete actions to take.
The first two weddings that took place within the Northampton Meeting community were of same-sex couples, even though such ceremonies could not yet be performed legally, according to member Becky Jones.
When the same-sex couples submitted their marriage requests to the preparative meeting in 1992, members debated whether to bypass asking that the relationships come under the care of its parent meeting, Mt. Toby, as they would normally do for a marriage request since they were not yet their own monthly meeting.
“We [thought about] simply conducting the marriages under the care of Northampton Friends Preparative Meeting since they weren’t legal marriages,” Jones said. “We opted for marriage under the care of Mt. Toby because we wanted to treat them as we would have treated a request for a legal (heterosexual) marriage.”
In 1996, two years after Northampton became an independent monthly meeting and, five years after it began as a worship group, its members adopted a minute on sexual orientation, according to Jones. The minute states, in part:
We bring our whole selves to our relationship with the Divine and find that sexuality within a loving relationship, whether homosexual or heterosexual, has the potential to bring us closer to God. We as a Meeting feel that we have been blessed by the presence and participation of lesbians, gays and bisexuals as individuals and, for some, as partners in same sex couples.
Foster also noted that the meeting sought to offer guidance to other meetings that were considering adopting same-sex marriage minutes.
After Friends at Beacon Hill Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, adopted a minute in 1988 supporting same-sex marriage, members wanted to support other meetings considering similar actions, according to Beth Nagy. The meeting sent the minute to Salem Quarterly Meeting as well as to all the Friends meetings in the Salem Quarter. Three or four meetings reached out to Friends at Beacon Hill.
A committee of about six Beacon Hill Friends visited various meetings to support discussions of same-sex marriage minutes. Members from Beacon Hill shared personal stories and discussed the process of adopting the minute. One discussion format that Nagy particularly appreciated was handing out index cards, each of which had a question about same-sex marriage to be answered anonymously. The cards were shuffled and passed out to the group. The process sparked additional questions and discussions.
Friends from other meetings in the quarter expressed reservations about meetings getting into legal trouble for allowing marriages that were not legal, Nagy recalled.
“There’s a general fear of changing big norms,” Nagy said.
In the late 1990s, Beacon Hill Meeting got an invitation to work with the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, which was publicly advocating legal same-sex marriages. Nagy was the meeting representative to the coalition. Before semi-retiring, Nagy worked to prevent domestic violence and rape. She felt motivated to promote nonviolent and loving marriages and was distressed that healthy same-sex marriages were not legal.
“Here’s couples who are loving each other, and they can’t get married. This is ridiculous,” Nagy said.
The Obergefell v. Hodges decision took place after many meetings had already adopted same-sex marriage minutes. When the Supreme Court decided that case, some same-sex couples in Ann Arbor Meeting became legally married, Tinkerhess recalled.
Friends in Atlanta Meeting celebrated the decision with a meeting for worship distinguished by decorations and singing, Lord noted. The ruling, however, did not sway the opinions of Friends in the meeting.
“By that point, it was a non-issue for us,” Lord said.
In 1999, Portland Friends School was established. It was a culmination of a committee made up of Friends from a Beanite Meeting and an EFC church. The church had facilities for a school and an excellent location. However, by the time the school was to open, the EFC church had withdrawn all support based “solely” on the fact that the school was open to children from same sex marriages. Also, in the last few decades, Indiana YM “threw out” a significant number of Meetings over the issue of “acceptance” of same sex relationships. Other YMs have done the same. Friends still have a way to go.
North Meadow Circle of Friends in Indianapolis had not had any marriages under its care when in 1986 a heterosexual couple requested the Meeting to consider taking under its care marriages of lesbians and gays, as well as heterosexual couples. In 1987 the Meeting united on such a minute supporting same-sex marriage. That same year a lesbian couple were married under care of North Meadow Circle of Friends. This may have been the first same-sex marriage under the care of a Friends Meeting in the United States.
One milestone in the process of acceptance of same-sex marriage was not in the article. Goshen MM in PA performed a marriage of Philip Fitz (me) and Daniel Burgoon under its care on October 27, 1990.
In 1988 I applied to become a member of Goshen meeting. Everyone in the meeting knew my partner Dan and I had been together for 10 years. At my clearness for membership, one member of the meeting said to me, “Phil, you know that this meeting has never discussed whether we would perform ceremonies of commitment for same-sex couples, and I don’t know what the meeting would decide. Would you still want to be a member, even if we decide not to do so?” I realized that I loved this meeting and its members more than I wanted a ceremony of commitment. So I joined the meeting.
A year later I asked the meeting to discuss whether they would perform a ceremonies of commitment. The meeting began threshing the concern. Threshing sessions were held once or twice a month for a year, and were very well attended. I did not attend because I wanted to give Friends space to speak openly. The contents of threshing sessions were not reported back to the meeting. I had given up thinking that Friends in the meeting were ever going to come to unity on ceremonies of commitment if they were still threshing it a year later.
Then the clerk, Betsy Balderston, came to me and said the meeting for last several months had been threshing what marriage was. They concluded it was not a legal event, but rather a religious event. Marriage was two people who love each other, who commit themselves to each other and who involve God in their relationship. They decided that definition applied to Dan and me, and so no minute was required. They would simply accept an application for marriage from us and treat it as any other application for marriage.
Dan and I were married under the care of the meeting. Dan died in 2001, but the meeting did take us under its care for the rest of our marriage. Goshen MM was truly Spirit-led.
I read “A Union Like Any Other” last week with tremendous enthusiasm. I appreciate the way its author highlighted the dynamics and complexities that were a part of discernment processes to support same-sex unions in the 1980s and 1990s. These were challenging times and many community bonds were tested.
As a historian and an academic working on LGBTIAQ+ history myself, I was honestly disappointed that the first same-sex union under the care of a meeting wasn’t mentioned, which celebrated the partnership of Dorsey Green and Margaret Sorrel at University Friends Meeting in 1981. The first Quaker minute in support of gay marriage came from San Francisco Monthly Meeting in 1971 and it was also not mentioned in the article.
It seems to me that there is a difference between those who practice homosexuality to enrich there sexual experience and those who identify steadfast as homosexual because they feel that they were born that way. I think it is important that people objectively discern between the two because it is not fair that those who are honest about how they feel should be judged with the same measure that people judge those who don’t have any reason to be gay.
There are many places in the bible (both old and new testaments) that condemn the act of homosexuality, but I think those verses of scripture are referring to those who want to enrich there sexual experience. I don’t think the bible addresses those who feel they were born gay. Those who make that claim are I feel making that assumption to cover up insecurities that society has afflicted on them for being different. As far as I know, the bible does not say anything in their defense. But the bible definitely encourages diversity; though I think that is to limited in scope to the times. Chauvinism has always been around.
My own experience however has shown me that personalities range beyond simple generalizations. Even my own personality does not fall perfectly into what has been called the male stereotype. And so I think it is wrong to generalize personalities as being either male or female. I further think that society is responsible for creating identity crises in those whose personalities fall to far from their gender stereotype. Would gays have chosen to be gay if people had never been indoctrinated to think in terms of gender stereotypes? Would there ever have be any such thing as transgender?
I don’t think God ever provided for same sex marriage. But I believe that God understands the pain of rejection, and what ridicule can do to people, and so I believe that same sex marriage, though not consecrated by God, falls however under the grace of that which we call, God
I think God is in same sex marriages the same way he is in any other marriage. It was only humans who provided strictures on any loving relationship.
Your excellent article on marriage policy (A Union Unlike Any Other, FJ August) has an incorrect date for Northampton Friends Meeting’s minute on marriage. Instead of 1996, as Becky Jones remembered, the minute bear the date of February 13, 1994, our first Meeting for Business as a Monthly Meeting. I don’t remember that we ever had any discussions about the policy, only about details of implementation. The policy had been established by Mt. Toby, our parent, in 1990, again with alacrity.