Things Are This Bad

What authority is responsible for defrocking Presbyterians? That was my question on reading this piece in the Washington Post:

"Clarendon Presbyterian Church Pastor David Ensign has an alternative air about him. He wears an earring and has been known to pick up his guitar to play a few hymns during Sunday services.

"But he surprised even some of Arlington's die-hard progressives Nov. 3 at the county's annual human rights awards ceremony, where his church was honored. He used the occasion to announce the church's new wedding policy:

"Traditional marriages are out. 'Celebrations of commitment' are in.

"To protest Virginia's laws banning same-sex marriage, Ensign and the church's governing council decided recently that Clarendon Presbyterian will no longer have any weddings, and Ensign will renounce his state authority to marry couples.

"Any heterosexual couple who has their union 'blessed' in a 'celebration ceremony' at the tiny church will have to take the extra step of being officially wed by a justice of the peace at the courthouse."

Get Religion is blase about the earring. But it's not the earring that bothers me.