Gay Weddings

The village's mayor was charged Tuesday with 19 criminal counts for performing weddings for gay couples, an act of defiance that thrust the small community into the center of the national debate over same-sex marriage. Jason West was charged with solemnizing marriages for couples who had no licenses, a misdemeanor under the domestic relations law, according to Ulster County Dist. Atty. Donald Williams.

A United Methodist pastor who set off a controversy three years ago by holding a lesbian wedding was defrocked Wednesday for once again officiating at a marriage of two men. The Rev. Jimmy Creech made headlines when he was acquitted of a similar charge last year. Since then, the church has clarified its rule against pastors conducting gay marriages.

Nearly a dozen gay and lesbian couples pledged their love and commitment in a symbolic marriage ceremony officiated by the mayor of the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. A few protesters silently lined up in front of City Hall, where the couples and Mayor Robert Porter gathered under a blue and pink banner that proclaimed: "To love, honor and be recognized."

In a letter to bishops, 363 United Methodist clergy and laity urged the church to end its ban on celebrating gay and lesbian marriages. The letter was released Sunday by Rev. Jimmy Creech of Raleigh, who was asked to leave a church in Omaha, Neb., after performing a same-sex blessing ceremony for two women in September 1997. "Clergy colleagues will stand together, supporting one another, in the celebration of these unions," said the letter, signed by people in 37 states and Washington, D.C.

Walt Disney Co. has changed its policy to allow same-sex couples to participate in a popular Fairy Tale Wedding program it runs mainly at its two U.S. resorts and on its cruise line, a Disney spokesman said Thursday.

The New Brunswick Theological Seminary has ousted its president and reprimanded him for officiating at his gay daughter's wedding. The Rev. Norman Kansfield, 64, of the Reformed Church of America performed the ceremony in Massachusetts, which last year became the first state to sanction same-sex marriage. He could face a church trial later this year.

A Methodist minister who presided at the "wedding" of two gay men went on trial Thursday before a jury of 13 pastors in the first test of a church law banning same-sex ceremonies. The Rev. Gregory Dell of Chicago, a pastor for 30 years, could be defrocked if found guilty. A verdict is expected Saturday. In opening statements, a minister acting as a church prosecutor said the ceremony Dell performed in September made "a mockery of church law."