Pretty cool...
Jan. 7th, 2004 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geminigirlby KYW's David Madden
A South Jersey minister is taking a stand in an ongoing legal battle to sanction same-sex marriages in the Garden State.
Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan (right) is pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill and performs about a dozen religious marriages a year -- half of which, she says, involve same-sex couples.
Since they can't have a marriage license, she says, she will no longer sign civil marriage licenses -- for anyone.
She equates the state's ban on same-sex marriage licenses to banning interracial marriages during the days of segregation down South, where she grew up.
So for now, she'll arrange for a civil authority to sign licenses for heterosexual couples:
"I wanted to make sure that they were inconvenienced as little as possible while being able to maintain what was, for me, an ethical boundary."
Her church's board supports her position. She acknowleges that her colleagues from other faiths are split, although Sullivan says some are quietly in her corner.
A lawsuit could eventually force New Jersey to issue same-sex marriage licenses.
