Quakers Mull Gay Weddings

Nearly three years have passed since Betsy Kantt left the Cambridge Friends' Meeting, upset with the Quakers's treatment of gay and lesbian issues. But the group still has not come to a resolution over how it cares for its homosexual members.

A few lesbians, including Kantt, have left the Cambridge Meeting in recent years, citing the group's refusal to approve homosexual marriages.

The Meeting approved the "union and celebration" of gay and lesbian couples, but fell short of calling the union marriage.

Emily Sander, clerk of the Cambridge Meeting, said the group did not "want to do too much at one time."

"We do not want to make this a place where some people can't worship," she said.

The controversy intensified last August when the Beacon Hill Meeting, which approves homosexual marriages, asked other Meetings how they would treat couples married by Beacon Hill.

The Cambridge Meeting has yet to discuss the question, but expect to consider it this winter or spring, said Sander.

Wendy Sanford, a lesbian in the Cambridge Meeting, said that if a majority vote were taken, there were be homosexual Quaker couples in Cambridge today.

"There were a small number of people who felt deeply led, who feel God is asking us to do such and such a thing, keeping the whole group from unity," she said.

Kantt, who left the Cambridge Meeting and joined the Beacon Hill Friends' group, said that while most of the Cambridge Quakers were in favor of homosexual marriages, a few blocked passage of the resolution.

The Meeting is waiting for a gay or lesbian couple to ask for marriage, Sanford said.

But Kantt said that she and her lover did not want to wait to be "guinea pigs." "We weren't comfortable with that, with having our community fizzle out," she said.

Kantt said many lesbian Friends are "frustrated" by the Cambridge Meeting and believe it is not as inclusive as other groups.

"After a few controversial issues happened, some [members] stopped going for a while...It used to be a large community, but not anymore. Most are going to different meetings," she said.

Kantt said the Cambridge group did nothing to block derogatory comments about gay life made by a few members.

"If he had said those things about Blacks and Jews and Hispanics, he would have been thrown out of the Meeting," she said, speaking about one members 'comments. "A lot of us felt like we couldn't be around him, and around a Meeting that would accept him," she said.

Sander applauded the efforts of the Beacon Hill Meeting to make gay and lesbian Friends feel comfortable.

Judy Williams, a member of the Beacon Hill Meeting, said that the Cambridge Meeting, with 300 members, cannot react as quickly as the smaller Boston group.

"We can take time to listen to everyone's feelings, give them time to move, rather than push something through before people were ready, and wait around for people who didn't want to be part of the process."