Twin Cities Quakers won’t sign marriage certificates until gays can marry

(Lavverrue, Flickr)

A meeting of Twin Cities Quakers has decided to stop signing marriage certificates until all couples in Minnesota are allowed to marry. The decision, made in November, was a topic of Minnesota Public Radio’s All Things Considered on Monday.

Paul Landskroener, a clerk for the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, said that the group decided to forgo legalizing heterosexual unions “until we can do so for all the couples we witness.” For Quakers, the term “meeting” is similar to a congregation.

“We feel very strongly and very clearly led. And at the present time we simply cannot participant in what we believe to be unjust and inconsistent with out religious testimony,” he told MPR. “We have always been willing to accept the burdens of our testimonies. And this is a very small burden we believe to place on our members to speak the truth.

Different branches among Quakers take differing views on the issue. The more conservative groups, including the Friends United Meeting (FUM) and Evangelical Friends International (EFI), have taken a hard-line stance on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Twin Cities Quakers are affiliated with the Friends General Conferencem which has adopted a stance in full support of LGBT equality.