MARYSVILLE — The Rev. Alicia Grace was at the Marysville-North County YMCA last week when an older man she didn’t know walked up and shook her hand.
"There were tears in his eyes," she said. "He said, ‘I want to thank you. I drove by your church and saw your sign.’ "
The sign hangs on the front of the Evergreen Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1607 Fourth St., where Grace is the pastor.
It reads: "Civil marriage is a civil right."
Since church officials hung the banner on the church on Feb. 22 the response from the public has been heartwarming.
"I’ve received letters from people I’ve never met," Grace said. "Everyone has been very supportive."
Hanging the banner has nudged the church into a national debate over gay marriage.
Recent developments on the issue include:
Minority Democrats were on the verge of forcing a vote on House Bill 1809, which would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment and financial transactions. The bill passed the House 59-39 last month but stalled in committee in the Senate.
Grace is happy that the public discussion on gay marriage has finally boiled over into the mainstream.
"The liberal voice has been so silent," Grace said. "There are people who celebrate diversity and believe in the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. That’s what we’re affirming."
Grace, 37, originally from New England, has been pastor of the Marysville church for three years. Her husband, Steven Grace, is the office manager for a Unitarian Universalist Church in Bellevue.
Alicia Grace performed her first civil union of a same-sex couple in 1998 and has done more than a dozen in the past two years. They’ve ranged from big, formal ceremonies with flower girls, ring bearers and full attendants to a small ceremony on an island off the coast of New Hampshire.
She performed two last summer here in Washington for couples who had been together for 15 and 20 years.
And last week, she heard from two more gay couples who’d like to tie the knot when the weather gets better.
Grace charges between $300 and $500 for a civil service. She crafts the spiritual language on each couple’s wishes and weaves their story throughout the ceremony.
Most of the same-sex couples Grace has united in marriage have been together at least 10 years.
"If my heterosexual couples could be as intentional as my same-sex couples, our divorce rate would be a lot lower," she said. "They don’t take it for granted. All of my same-sex couples are still together, and I can’t say that about my heterosexual couples."
Same-sex marriage is a justice issue, Grace said.
"The issue quite simply is equal rights for everyone. Heterosexuals have more than 1,000 rights given to them automatically upon their marriage. Same-sex couples should have the same rights," she said.
Those rights include Social Security survivor’s benefits, community property inheritance, tax benefits, the right to have a say in a spouse’s medical decisions and even the right to see a person who has been hospitalized.
Grace hopes that the furor over gay marriage will allow same-sex couples that she marries to have those same rights some day very soon.
A civil union — the type of same-sex marriages Grace has been performing — is a religious ceremony, but has no legal standing.
The Unitarian Universalist fellowship has been performing civil unions since 1986, Grace said.
In San Francisco right now, a civil marriage gives same-sex couples who marry the same benefits heterosexual couples get. Those marriages will be challenged in court.
Everywhere else, including in Washington, those rights are only given to a man and a woman.
"That’s what would need to be changed," Grace said.
The banner was intended as a public statement "about what we are as a welcoming congregation," said Sherrill Dryden, president of the church’s board of directors.
A decade ago, the Unitarian Universalist Association, which includes Grace’s church, passed a resolution welcoming all persons and affirming that every member of the congregation should have full participation regardless of race, color, gender, physical or mental challenges or sexual orientation.
"We will advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and particularly speak out when their rights are at stake," Dryden said.
In February, many gay couples filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts seeking the right to marry. About half of those couples were Unitarian Universalist members, Dryden said.
"That’s what started the ball rolling," she said.
Grace recently received an e-mail from a man who drove past the church and saw the banner.
He wrote:
"We owe the Unitarian church our thanks. While we respect the right of some churches to believe their Bible directs them to discriminate against gays, we are again reminded of the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: ‘When will our churches stop being taillights and start being headlights?’"
Change takes time, Grace said.
"My hope is the banner will spark respectful dialogue — to state the inherent worth of every human being and to spark respectful community dialogue."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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