c. 2008 Religion News Service

Connecticut high court approves gay marriage

(RNS) Connecticut became the third state to allow same-sex marriage after its Supreme Court ruled Friday (Oct. 10) that it is unconstitutional to deny the legal benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.

The 4-3 decision outraged conservative groups, who are pushing hard for constitutional amendments on the November ballot that would outlaw gay marriage in California, Arizona and Florida.

“This decision demonstrates … the dire need for states to enact constitutional amendments to protect marriage from ongoing judicial attack,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

The case, Kerrigan v. State of Connecticut, was filed in 2004 by eight same-sex couples who applied for marriage licenses and were denied. The state began offering civil unions to same-sex couples in 2005.

But Justice Richard N. Palmer, writing for the majority, said equal protection means “gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law estimates that there are about 9,500 same-sex couples in Connecticut, and projected that 3,000 of them will seek to marry within the next year.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, said she disagreed with the ruling, but signaled that she will not fight it because “attempts to reverse this decision _ either legislatively or by amending the state Constitution _ will not meet with success.”

The Connecticut Catholic Conference said it would support a constitutional amendment to overturn the court’s decision, saying the court had “taken it upon itself to make a determination that other courts throughout our nation have felt should be made through the political process.”

The decision was praised by the state conference of the United Church of Christ, which in 2005 became the first major U.S. denomination to endorse civil marriage for same-sex couples.

“I greet this day with great joy in my heart, especially for the thousands of gay and lesbian citizens who will know that they are fully included in our common life as a state from this day forward,” said the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, who heads the UCC’s Connecticut Conference.

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Report calls U.S. church giving `lukewarm’

(RNS) Americans spent nearly twice as much on first-day sales of the video game “Grand Theft Auto IV” as would be needed by the Southern Baptist Convention to share the gospel with all the world’s “unreached people groups” by 2010, according to a new report on church giving.

The annual report, by the Illinois-based group empty tomb inc., found a general downward trend in church member giving through 2006, which led authors to propose a “global triage to treat what ails the church.”

They said focusing on reaching new “people groups” and preventing child deaths around the world would help U.S. churches “sort out their priorities” to use what funds they do have more efficiently.

“It’s difficult to avoid the label of `lukewarm’ when analyzing the church’s level of response to Jesus’ Great Commandment and Great Commission,” said John Ronsvalle, who co-authored the study with his wife, Sylvia.

Even Southern Baptists, a group highlighted as a “denomination that takes this religious task seriously,” have not launched an aggressive campaign to fund the estimated additional 2,800 missionaries that would be needed to “engage” unreached groups by 2010.

Empty tomb estimated it would cost about $11 per Southern Baptist to fund those extra missionaries; instead, the denomination’s 2008 goal of $170 million to support existing missionaries is the equivalent of asking each Southern Baptist to donate just 31 cents more than last year.

By contrast, Americans spent $310 million in first-day sales for “Grand Theft Auto IV.”

“The total portion of per capita income given to churches in 2006 was lower (in 2006) than in the worst year of the Great Depression,” the authors found.

The report estimates that for only $26 a year per evangelical, U.S. evangelicals as a whole could fund $544 million in efforts through evangelical-affiliated denominations and other missions agencies.

The report estimated that it would cost each U.S. church member just 8 cents a day to help reach the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of cutting infant mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

_ Ashley Gipson

La. church forced to rebuild _ again _ after hurricane damage

METAIRIE, La. (RNS) In the past three years, Memorial Baptist Church has absorbed a series of hard punches from Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike, but the congregation and its pastor refuse to give up.

“The people in the church are phenomenal,” said the Rev. Jackie Gestes, pastor. “When the Lord is with you, who can be against you? And in the midst of all this we know he is with us.”

In 2005, the winds from Hurricane Katrina ripped the roof off the church’s sanctuary and left the worship space in shambles. Gestes and the congregation spent almost three years rebuilding while holding worship services in the fellowship hall.

The congregation held its first worship service in the remodeled sanctuary July 13. The renovation included new pews, carpet, sound system and a baby grand piano.

When Hurricane Gustav blew through on Sept. 1, its winds took the roof off _ again _ and damaged most of the inside of the sanctuary including the pews, piano and carpet.

“We put a temporary plastic roof on the building and thought we could save the interior walls,” Gestes said.

But the winds from Hurricane Ike the following week ripped off the temporary roof and allowed rainwater to damage the interior walls and drywall.

“When the wind from Ike took off the plastic roof, it left the inside totally vulnerable to the rain,” Gestes said. “And that finished off the rest of the building.”

The congregation is now faced with the challenge of having to rebuild the sanctuary a second time in three years, and it is once again holding Sunday worship services in the fellowship hall.

“The Sunday after Gustav, we met in the fellowship hall and there was some shock among some of the people when they saw the damage for the first time,” Gestes said. “Yet at the same time, they were already thinking about rebuilding and talking about how soon we could get it done.”

The church plans to start rebuilding the sanctuary as soon as possible, Gestes said, and their goal is to have it finished in six months.

“Hard times bring people together, and we have a strong unity that only God can provide,” Gestes said. “And we are going to come back better than ever.”

_ Earl Hodges

Quote of the Day: Unitarian Universalist President William Sinkford

(RNS) “We know from our nation’s painful history that separate is never equal.”

_ The Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, applauding Friday’s ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage. The state had previously allowed civil unions for same-sex couples.

KRE/PH END RNSEds: Davida (last graf of first item) and empty tomb (second item) are both CQ

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