In August 2018 Charlottesville Friends Meeting’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee sponsored a table at the Cville Pride Festival. More than a dozen people from our CFM community helped by staffing the table, providing craft projects for kids, bringing refreshments, and making a beautiful banner. The craft project of making rainbow noodle necklaces proved to be a popular for kids, enabling us to reach out to their parents and guardians about the Meeting, some of our activities, and Quakers in general.
Charlottesville Friends and Same-Sex Marriage Rights
1990-2000
CFM did not receive a request for marriage under the care of the meeting from a same-sex couple until April 1997. Ted Siedlecki and his partner, Aron Teel, were the first. The Meeting’s first action was to approve a minute re-affirming their intention to consider all requests for marriage under the Meeting’s care “without regard to gender.” The request was then referred to Overseers and a clearness committee. The committee found them clear for marriage, and the Meeting then approved their request for marriage under the care of the Meeting.
CFM’s history with this issue began in 1990 when a lesbian Friend asked the Meeting to consider what it would do if a gay or lesbian couple asked for marriage under the care of the Meeting. After a series of discussions, CFM approved a report from Ministry and Worship recommending that all requests for marriage under the care of the Meeting be treated according to our established procedures without regard to sexuality of the applicants.
In a separate discussion about facilitating heterosexual marriages under the care of the Meeting it dawned on Friends that no work had gone into securing these same rights and privileges for same-sex couples. Our meeting had not even written a letter to protest the “Defense of Marriage Act” (or its Virginia counterpart) when those pieces of legislation were being debated. CFM then became energized to consider what our response should be to this insensitivity and lack of justice.
June 1999– Virginia Half-Year’s meeting approved the minute. Another set of letters went out (this time to all of BYM) under the signature of the clerk of Meeting asking where Meetings stood and offering Te and Aron as Traveling Friends. They spoke to BYM Annual Sessions in 1999 when Virginia Half-Yearly’s minute was presented, and again briefly in 2000 to give a report on our visits. They had received invitations from and traveled to three additional Meetings.
- first, a lengthy minute (see below) was approved in November 1997 that expanded on our concerns for same-sex couples requesting marriage under the care of the Meeting.
- second, we proposed a minute to Virginia Half-Yearly Meeting with the hope that it would then go on to Baltimore Yearly Meeting for consideration.
- third, we agreed to send letters to all Meetings in Virginia under the signature of the clerk of the Meeting offering Ted and Aron as” traveling Friends to discuss our Meeting’s experience of our Gay and Lesbian Friends .” They received invitations from and traveled to three Meetings.
Friends gathered to discuss the concern for equality in marriage rights. A special concern was the lack of unity on this subject within both Virginia Half-Yearly Meeting and Baltimore Yearly Meeting. It was the sense of many Friends that we should work first among Friends to try to bring about unity so that we might “speak to power” with a stronger voice. An ad-hoc committee was then appointed to make action recommendations. These were
Because of the discussions during the clearness process Ted and Aron discovered that they did not want a ceremony of commitment. They wanted to be married. They wanted to be married both spiritually and legally. The idea of a ceremony of commitment, which was the only legal option in the Commonwealth of Virginia at that time, made them feel like second-class citizens. They were content to remain “engaged” until legal marriage was possible for them in Virginia.
Charlottesville Friends Meeting Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
Minute on Same-Gender Marriage
Charlottesville Friends recognize marriages to affirm lifelong loving commitments, to support families, and to strengthen our spiritual community. It is fundamental to Quaker faith and practice that we honor the equality and integrity of all human beings and affirm individuals in their leadings. Therefore, we find it consistent with Quakers’ historical faith and testimonies that we practice a single standard of treatment for all couples who wish to marry.
Charlottesville Meeting has traditionally celebrated committed unions as marriages under the care of the Meeting. We offer the same loving care and consideration to all couples without regard to gender.
Gay and lesbian Friends and couples bless our Meeting. Their gifts of courage, love, and devotion speak to us of God, and move us closer to that of God within us all. We offer our experience of these gifts to other Meetings as they seek the Light on this issue.
The state offers legal recognition of opposite-sex marriages and extends significant privileges to couples who legally marry. We believe a commitment to equality requires that same-sex couples be offered those same rights and privileges, and we resolve to work toward that end.
Approved 11/2/1997
2001-2015
s Ted and Aron continued their traveling ministry visiting other Meetings in BYM through 2002. By that time they reported that 25 of the 45 Meetings were in unity or substantial unity with our minute. Only four Meetings were clearly not in unity.
Efforts included a campaign to defeat the adoption of amendment # 1 to the Virginia Constitution which outlawed same sex marriage. The amendment passed in November 2006 although it was voted down in Charlottesville and Albemarle. In March of 2014 this amendment was declared unconstitutional in the federal district court under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
On October 13, 2014, in the presence of a joyful crowd, Ted Siedlecki and Aron Teel were legally married at the Charlottesville Friends Meeting.
Charlottesville Friends extended their work to the local community. In February of 2004 we invited representatives of all local congregations and any other interested individuals to meet with us “to discuss the issue of same-sex marriage and to develop means by which we can expand marriage rights in a peaceful and loving manner.” This meeting was well attended . Interest groups formed in the community, some of them uniting the efforts of several congregations.