Neighborhood

Buffalo hosts first Presbyterian gay wedding

Photo courtesy of the Westminster Presbyterian Church Facebook page.

blog by S.J. Velasquez • October 05, 2011 @ 10:27am

On Sunday, Jen Henry and Mary Callaghan stood before the Rev. Jane Spahr, the Rev. Tom Yorty, and 100+ guests inside Buffalo’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, 724 Delaware Ave., and they were declared “truly married.”

This is what’s believed to be the state’s first same-sex wedding in a Presbyterian church, the Huffington Post reports. The two ministers said they pronounced the couple married on behalf of the state and the church, though not all Presbyterians would approve of the wedding.

“This is the first same-gender wedding in this sanctuary in 156 years,” Yorty said, according to the Huffington post article. “This is a Rosa Parks’ moment, and we decided to sit in the front of the liturgical bus.”

This moment finally became a reality for the women who had been living together for the past 19 years.

A status update on the Buffalo church’s Facebook page reads, “What a wonderful day! So proud of Westminster!!”

Buffalo is not only home to the state’s first legal gay marriage performed in a Presbyterian church—two Buffalonians made up the first gay couple to be married in the state. Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd were married in July, in Niagara Falls. The ceremony took place a moment after midnight, once gay marriages were allowed to be legally performed in New York.

Photo courtesy of the Westminster Presbyterian Church Facebook page.

TAGGED: huffington post, same-sex marriage, westminster presbyterian church