New York’s same-gender marriage law prompts diocesan pension fund changes
When the state of New York allows same-gender couples to marry beginning July 24, some of the state’s Episcopal Church bishops are requiring their partnered clergy to avail themselves of the law.
And, the Church Pension Group said July 11 that it decided nearly a month ago to follow the requirements of the New York law and provide “parity of benefits for legally-married same-gender spouses.” A letter explaining the change was recently sent to all participants.
Clergy living in same-gender relationships in the Diocese of Long Island have nine months from July 24 to have their relationships “be regularized either by the exchange of vows in marriage” or live apart, Bishop Lawrence Provenzano announced in a July 8 pastoral letter setting out guidelines for implementing the new law.
The letter, titled “A Theological Perspective and Practical Guideline on Marriage in the Diocese of Long Island as New York,” was sent to all diocesan clergy and is to be read in Long Island parishes on Aug. 7.
“I deem it to be honest and fair, and I do so direct and require, now that it is legal, that only married couples may live together, either in rectories or elsewhere as a clergy couple living in the midst of our faith community,” wrote the bishop, who had earlier welcomed the new law’s passage.
Provenzano told Episcopal News Service in a telephone interview July 11 that after he consulted with the leadership of the diocese “it was clear that the consensus of thinking was that there ought to be some time frame” on fulfilling his requirement. “If we left it completely open-ended, it might not be acted on” and that inaction would create a “disparity,” he said, noting that he would not allow a heterosexual clergy couple to live together outside of marriage.
The bishop said he has not received any criticism from the gay and lesbian clergy of the diocese.
“At least as it applies to the Diocese of Long Island, I don’t think it’s going to feel to anyone that I am being unpastoral or punitive in any way or creating a hardship for them by saying nine months,” he said. “I suspect that most of our partnered gay and lesbian clergy have been living in committed relationships for a fairly long period of time and that the concept of being married is exactly what they’ve been waiting for to happen, so the church moving in this direction with them is welcomed.”
Provenzano noted that the lay people involved in these same-gender relationships are being told by their employers that they must marry in order to preserve their benefits.
“An overarching ecclesial matter” for him, the bishop said, was that there not be a long period of time when the clergy of the diocese seemed to have “a special privilege over the lay folk of their parishes” in terms of these employment requirements.
Meanwhile, Manhattan-based Diocese of New York, Bishop Mark Sisk said in a letter to clergy about their options for marrying same-gender couples under the law that “in the spirit of the opportunity provided by this new law, it is my expectation that all those who are currently living in committed relationships, will, in due course, have those relationships formalized by the state of New York.”
This, Sisk said, “is an especially high priority for priests and deacons because in their ordination vows they promised to pattern their lives and that of their families and households “in accordance with the teachings of Christ” so that they may be “a wholesome example” to people.
(The report continues with the responses of other bishops in the greater New york area. It concludes with this cinmment from the clergy pension fund).
Clergy Pension Fund changes
In announcing the changes, the Manhattan-based Pension Group said in its statement that, “under the laws of the State of New York, employers subject to New York State law must recognize same-gender marriages that are validly solemnized within or outside the State of New York for the purposes of providing benefits to employees.”
The rule changes apply to participants in the Church Pension Fund Clergy Pension Plan, the defined-benefit Episcopal Church Lay Employees’ Retirement Plan and the Church Pension Fund Clergy Post-Retirement Medical Assistance Plan (known as the Medicare Supplement Benefit).
Previously, in terms of pension benefits, the Clergy Pension Plan offered at no cost to the cleric an automatic survivor benefit for an eligible surviving spouse equal to 50 percent of the cleric’s pension benefit at the time of the cleric’s death, according to the Church Pension Benefits Under the Church Pension Fund. A reduction in the cleric’s benefit could increase the survivor benefit to 60, 75, 85 or 100 percent of the cleric’s pension benefit. An “eligible spouse” was previously defined as “the individual that the cleric is married to pursuant to the laws of the State governing the creation of the civil state of marriage and to the Canons of the Episcopal Church governing the solemnization of Holy Matrimony.”
Title I, Canon 18 defines marriage as that between a man and a woman, and says that “every member of the clergy of this Church shall conform to the laws of the State governing the creation of the civil status of marriage, and also to the laws of this Church governing the solemnization of Holy Matrimony.”
Clergy who were single in the eyes of the civil jurisdiction in which they lived could establish a survivor’s benefit at various percentages for a named beneficiary, according to the guide.