Hello from New Orleans. I'm here with MLP's RainbowCorps' mission service team working to rebuild homes in the City of New Orleans with Project Homecoming, a relief project of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Presbytery of South Louisiana. 
PASADENA - Same-sex marriages may not be legal, but at All Saints Episcopal Church, they are marriages all the same.
Tuesday's passage of Proposition 8 banned same-sex marriage in California, but officials at All Saints in Pasadena vow to continue blessing such ceremonies - as the church has done for the past 16 years.
"The only difference will be that we will not actually be signing marriage certificates," the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector for All Saints, said Friday.
The church began conducting legal same-sex marriages in June, after the California Supreme Court ruled that gay couples had the right to wed.
Since then - and up until Tuesday - the church had presided over 43 legal same-sex marriages. Many of the weddings were legal confirmations of religious ceremonies that the church has held over the last decade and a half.
Bacon has been a vocal critic of Proposition 8, particularly of religion's role in the campaign opposing same-sex marriage.
"It is the last acceptable bigotry in our country and it has not been effectively challenged by religion," Bacon said. "A lot of religion is bigoted, it is not inclusive, and that is a perversion of religion."
Bacon will conduct a special service Sunday to address "justice, Barack Obama, and us." A ceremony with a wedding cake is planned to commemorate the legal marriages that All Saints has blessed.
Bear Ride and Susan Craig, both of Pasadena, were the first same-sex couple to legally wed at All Saints in June. Ride believes that since her marriage was performed in the window between the court decision and Proposition 8, it will remain legal.
"For us, having gone through the legal process, it was a breath of fresh air having our relationship honored by the state," Ride said.
Ride and her partner are holding out hope that lawsuits against the measure will invalidate the ban. Craig said the relatively narrow margin of victory for the measure was encouraging.
"I see that, in the long haul, there's been great progress made, and in the short haul we need to do more," Craig said.
On Thursday, the couple received an ironic package in the mail. The sender was the state of California, and inside was their marriage certificate.
"So we plan to frame that," said Ride. "That will remind us that we need to keep on hoping and working."
nathan.mcintire@sgvn.com (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4475
Source of article:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_10932096?source=rss_viewed ___________________________________________________________________
The wedding of Bear Ride and Susan Craig...
For the story of Bear Ride and Susan Craig's wedding at All Saints' Church on June 19, 2008, go to the MLP article at: http://www.mlp.org/article.php?story=20080627004318152
