Same-sex marriage is “a conservative proposal” consistent with basic Christian teaching and the Christian life, Bishop Greg Rickel argues in a statement to be released in Seattle this afternoon.
Rickel, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, will join Jewish and Protestant leaders — and Catholics for Marriage Equality — at a news conference at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to promote passage of Referendum 74 on the November ballot. From seattlepi.com:
The state’s four Catholic bishops have written pastoral statements and recorded videos opposing marriage equality, and Referendum 74, arguing that God is the author of marriage between a man and a woman with procreation as a central goal.
Rickel, who has served since 2007 as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, which includes all of Western Washington, presents a quite different faith perspective.
“Christianity has held, when considering relationships of all sorts — but especially in relation to two people in marriage — fidelity to be our value,” Bishop Rickel writes. “Fidelity is the value in most all our sacraments, and also in our life as Christians.”
“It seems to me we have held our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in a Catch-22. We say they cannot live up to our value because they cannot be married, or even blessed in their union. While many of them have begged for this, it is still not possible.”
“If one would think about this carefully, it would be clear what they ask of us, the church and their government, is to put boundaries around their relationship, to hold them in the same regard and with the same respect, which would also mean that we expect the same from them, as any loving heterosexual couple.”
See full story at seattepi.com.