An Episcopal bishop in Boston has united two female Episcopal priests in marriage, one of them, the Rev. Mally Ewing Lloyd a former interim pastor at Christ Church in Needham.
On Jan. 1, diocesan Bishop M. Thomas Shaw solemnized the marriage of Lloyd and the Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. The ceremony took place more than a year after Shaw gave clergy in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts permission to perform marriages for all eligible couples.
This is the first marriage of a lesbian couple that Shaw has performed. The Episcopal Church’s canons state that marriage is between a man and a woman, but the church at its General Convention in July 2009 passed Resolution C056 which allows that “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”
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