May 15, 2013
“Why I disobeyed the United Methodist Church’s unjust teaching on same-sex marriage”
Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree is an ordained United Methodist minister and former dean of the Yale Divinity School, where he taught theological and social ethics. In this article for the Washington Post, he tells how honored he felt when asked to preside at his son’s marriage to the man he loved. “Performing their wedding was one of the most meaningful ritual acts of my life,” he writes. But his denomination regards officiating at a same-sex marriage to be a “chargeable offense,” and he now faces the possibility of a canonical trial. Ogletree writes: “My experiences in the Civil Rights movement have illumined my responses to what I perceive to be unjust disciplinary rules in the United Methodist Church, especially rules that denied my right to officiate at my own son’s wedding. As a heterosexual, married clergyman I have a unique opportunity and obligation to challenge the inequitable treatment of gay and lesbian persons, both in church practices and also in the wider society.”
