England’s first church gay wedding takes place
By Josh Haggis
A lesbian couple have married in what is believed to be England’s first same-sex marriage held inside a church.
Jan Tipper and Barb Burden tied the knot at the Metropolitan Community Church in Bournemouth on Sunday (April 13), the BBC reports.
In a statement to the press, Burden said: “Even though we’ve been together for almost 19 years, it didn’t feel right for us to have just a blessing or even a civil partnership.”
She continued: “We’ve hoped for years for the opportunity to legally marry and, once it became possible, we knew it was time for us to tie the knot and to do it before God in our church with our friends and family.”
Reverend Dwayne Morgan officiated the wedding, and said his church had “taken pride in celebrating diversity.”
He continued: “Through years of homophobia and oppressive laws against gay people, Metropolitan Community Church has taken pride in celebrating diversity and striving to include everyone. We do our best to get the word out that while many of Jesus’s followers discriminate, Jesus himself does not.”
Bournemouth’s Metropolitan Community Church is 35 years old and is part of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, which has churches in over 40 countries.
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Click here to watch a video one of the UK’s first gay weddings