RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP) – A lesbian Baptist pastor told her congregation July 24 that she doesn’t want to perform any more weddings until her state legalizes gay marriage.
Nancy Petty
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Nancy Petty, pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., said she recently asked the church deacons to relieve her of her pastoral duty to perform legal marriages. Part of her job as pastor is to perform weddings, she explained, and she enjoys it, but “every time I sign a marriage license for a heterosexual couple and act as an agent of the state, I am reminded of those couples who I marry that are denied the basic human right to legally marry the person of their choice.”
The church has long blessed unions between both same-sex and heterosexual couples, she said, but they are not the same. For heterosexuals it is called a “marriage” and satisfies requirements for the state. The others are called “unions” and are not legally binding.
Petty said she has “become increasingly uncomfortable with the inequality” of the two ceremonies. Even though the intent is to celebrate lifelong committed relationships equally, she believes the church unwittingly condones marriage inequality by acting as an agent of the state.
Because of that, she decided to ask the congregation: “Do we, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, want to continue to participate in offering religious ceremonies that carry with them civil and human rights that are not afforded to all people? Or will it be our practice and the practice of our ministers to honor all marriages equally by only offering religious ceremonies, thus not acting as agents of the state and perpetuating the unjust marriage laws of our state?”
"I don't sign birth certificates,” Petty said in the Raleigh News and Observer. “I don't sign death certificates. I do baptisms. I do funerals. There's no other ritual of the state that I have to sign a document."
Petty said she doesn’t know what the deacons will decide or if the matter will come to a church vote but she felt it is time to “begin a conversation” about an issue made keen with other states -– most recently New York -– enacting new laws to permit gays to wed.
This isn’t the first time the church has found itself on the front edge of controversy. Former pastor Edwin McNeill Poteat was a leading spokesperson for progressive Christianity in the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 20th century. W.W. Finlator, pastor from 1956 until 1982, led the congregation to integrate in 1958 and went on to take prophetic stands on issues including civil rights, organized labor and the Vietnam War.
Under Mahan Siler, pastor from 1983 until 1998, Pullen Memorial decided in 1992 to endorse unqualified acceptance of gay and lesbian Christians. Within a year the church was excluded from Raleigh Baptist Association, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC went further, amending its constitution to ban from membership churches that “act to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior.”
Petty first came to Pullen Memorial in 1992 at age 28 as minister of Christian education. Pastor Jack McKinney recommended shortly after coming in 2000 the church consider promoting Petty to associate pastor to serve alongside him in a two-pastor model of leadership. McKinney departed in 2009, leaving Petty as the church’s first female senior pastor.
Along with her pastoral duties, Petty has been active in her community, leading protests of efforts by the Wake County Board of Education to scrap a student-diversity policy that critics say will result in re-segregation of public schools. She was arrested last July in an act of civil disobedience after refusing to give up the podium at a public meeting.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.
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