Boston Cathedral celebrates first lesbian marriage: The Church of England Newspaper, Jan 14, 2011 p 7.

Canon Mally Lloyd, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, and Dean Katherine Ragsdale on Jan 1 at St Paul's Cathedral, Boston

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Bishop of Massachusetts married two women priests last week.

On Jan 1, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE celebrated the marriage of the Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School and the Rev. Mally Lloyd, the canon to the ordinary for the Diocese of Massachusetts.

“God always rejoices when two people who love each other make a lifelong commitment in marriage to go deeper into the heart of God through each other,” Bishop Shaw said, according to a press release from the Episcopal Divinity School.

“It’s a profound pleasure for me to celebrate with God and my friends Katherine and Mally their marriage today.”

The New Year’s Day wedding at St Paul’s Cathedral in Boston comes one year after Bishop Shaw permitted his clergy to perform same-sex marriages.  The Ragsdale-Lloyd wedding was the first marriage of a lesbian couple Bishop Shaw has performed, the press release noted.

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church authorized bishops, “particularly in those dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal” to provide a “generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”

Responses to the lesbian wedding have been low key.  Gay activists celebrated the event as a victory for “full inclusion” while conservatives repudiated the ceremony as a caricature of the church’s theology of marriage.

A spokesman for the Gafcon movement said he was not surprised by the news, but declined to comment on the latest news out of America.  A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury said Dr. Williams was on retreat, but noted “this looks like it’s a provincial matter so not something we would comment on.”

Dr. Ephraim Radner, a member of the Anglican Covenant design team, and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto, however, expressed disappointment with Lambeth Palace’s view of the affair.

“While I am not surprised at Lambeth’s response at this point, it is nonetheless very disappointing:  that is, the marriage in question continues to underline the degree to which the Episcopal Church has no interest in abiding by the teaching and discipline articulated by the Instruments of Communion, and thus emphasizes her incoherence as a province with the rest of the Communion in these fundamental areas of Christian life together,” the Anglican Communion Institute scholar noted.

“Why is this fact not worthy of comment?  Does the Church of England as a province have no interest in this ever-strengthening rebuff?  Does the Archbishop of Canterbury have no interest in this?  Will he continue to act as if nothing has happened?  If so, the avoidance of “response” constitutes ongoing Communion negligence,” Dr. Radner said.