Source: Marin Independent Journal, Associated Press, San Diego Union Tribune
Sara Taylor and Sherrie Holmes lined up along with other eager couples at the Marin County clerk's office Tuesday and got their license after 18 years together, but they waited until yesterday to get married

Marin County issued licenses to Taylor and Holmes and to 34 other same-sex couples Tuesday. County employees also performed 14 same-sex weddings.

But the Taylor-Holmes wedding held outside a county courts building yesterday became significant among the hundreds celebrated in California last week because it was presided over by the Rev. Jane Spahr and is seen as a fresh challenge to Presbyterian Church (USA) rules.

Leaders of that church are gathering this weekend in San Jose for a weeklong legislative meeting where changes to the denomination's positions on marriage and the ordination of gay clergy are expected to be discussed.

Spahr, 65, is a lesbian activist and retired Presbyterian minister from San Rafael who was censured last year by a regional Presbyterian church group for performing commitment ceremonies two other lesbian couples. The censure was overturned in April when the church's highest ruling body said she did not violate denominational law because the ceremonies weren't legal marriages.

Spahr conducted yesterday's ceremony knowing that it violates current church policy which defines marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman.

The court that overturned her censure wrote that clergy who perform ceremonies for same-sex couples "shall not state, imply or represent that a same-sex ceremony is a marriage. ... A same-sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage." 

At its biennial General Assembly in San Jose, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is expected to consider several proposals regarding LGBT issues, as it has for more than 30 years. 

One of the proposals, known as the New Hope Overture, seeks to reword the church's definition of marriage from a union between a man and a woman to one between two committed adults.

After the wedding ceremony yesterday, Spahr and Taylor, who served as her lawyer in challenging the censure motion, told Associated Press that they hoped the ceremony would send a message to church leaders in San Jose.

"To be able to marry my wonderful friends feels so liberating," Spahr told Marin Independent Journal Tuesday. "We are no longer second class - we are equal."

Spahr hopes to see that same kind of equality reflected in her church.

Full article: Same-sex couples take their vows in Marin | Marin Independent Journal
Presbyterian minister officiates gay CA wedding | Associated Press
Question of gay, lesbian clergy tops Presbyterian agenda | San Diego Union Tribune