Methodist-affiliated Emory University will allow gay couples to say marriage or commitment vows in its chapels, but the new policy sidesteps a conflict with the United Methodist Church by effectively excluding most of the school’s homosexual community.
As approved by the board of trustees, it requires that all such vows be taken before a religious leader from one of the 24 groups on campus, according to Emory chaplain Susan Henry-Crowe. Of those groups, she said, only the Reformed Jewish synagogue and the United Church of Christ now perform such ceremonies.
The action is in keeping with the university’s equal-opportunity policy and its atmosphere of religious freedom and tolerance without trampling on the beliefs of the church, Henry-Crowe, a Methodist minister, said.
Emory has been a center of controversy since the dean of Emory’s Oxford College, 30 miles southeast of Atlanta, denied permission for a gay ceremony in May.
