Spoilers for series 2 and 3 of Rev.
“Lots of priests do gay weddings, don’t they?” says Alex (Olivia Colman), wife of the Rev. Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander) on the BBC sitcom Rev. “As long as you don’t get caught, it’s just like parking on a double yellow.”
Unfortunately for Rev’s beleaguered inner-city parish priest, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Although gay marriage is now legal in England and Wales, the Church of England continues to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Thus under the new law, a same-sex couple can be married at the registry office—but not in their parish church.
The Church’s intractable position on gay marriage poses ethical and rhetorical problems for the priests tasked with enforcing the ban, suggests a recent episode of Rev. When Adam is asked to officiate a “proper church wedding” for his gay friends, he torturously attempts to appease the couple without falling afoul of church doctrine. “Earlier today you committed yourselves to one another in a union—not here, but at the town hall…You were married, but not here, because it’s against the law. It’s against church law.” The wedding guests look at each other quizzically.
Despite these efforts, Archdeacon Robert (Simon McBurney) is not pleased. “If you are found to have conducted a gay wedding, Adam, you will be first suspended, then defrocked, then killed by one of the bishop’s teams of assassins who patrol town in unmarked cars.”
The line has a surprising poignancy: Archdeacon Robert himself is gay, and has given up on his dream of becoming a bishop because he is involved in an “active gay relationship” with his partner. But when Adam suggests that surely he cannot support the Church position, the Archdeacon refuses to accept the implicit association between his sexual orientation and his views on doctrine. “Don’t tell me what I believe,” the Archdeacon says dangerously.
For gay clergy and parishioners alike, then, the Church’s ban on same-sex marriage is fraught. Ultimately, Adam consumes the offending piece of liturgy at the instigation of Archdeacon Robert (“Eat it! Eat it in the name of church unity!”), and marries his friends in a private ceremony. Outside the gently satirical universe of Rev, however, the Church of England may require longer-term solutions.