Same-sex ceremony to be permitted in Wake Forest University's chapel

                                                                                                                                                                  Vol. XII, No. 10, Nov/Dec 1999

A same-sex "covenant" ceremony for a Wake Forest University divinity school student and her lesbian partner was cleared by the president and chaplain of the university which until recent years had been affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Wake Forest Baptist Church, which meets in the university's Wait Chapel, will conduct the same-sex ceremony, if the two women choose to proceed with the marriage-like ceremony.

The 24-student divinity school opened this fall with Bill Leonard, a longtime Baptist historian, as dean. The divinity school receives part of its funding from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a national denomination-like organization of Baptist moderates. [BP]