Gay Catholic priest getting married

By Bryn Weese
Edmonton Sun
11/12/2009

TORONTO -- Canada's first openly gay Catholic priest is to mark another milestone.

Father Karl Clemens is getting married Saturday to his partner Nick.

He says he'll be the first man of the Catholic cloth to enter into a same-sex marriage in Canada, and maybe even in North America.

"I'm not doing it to start a revolution, but if people want to exercise their right, and so forth, that's terrific," Clemens told Sun Media yesterday.

"I feel very strongly about it.

"I'm leading the way, or pioneering, as it were, in something that I think is very important," Clemens said. "It's a human right."

Clemens, who is approaching 70 and who retired from the Kingston, Ont. diocese after serving there for 33 years, moved to Toronto more than a decade ago to work in, and advocate for, the city's gay village.

Regarding his same-sex marriage, he's prepared for a backlash from the church and some of its followers, as he was when he came out of the closet in 2005.

"There will be Catholics who feel, because of their lack of understanding, that this is a very wrong thing and therefore will not be pleased," Clemens said.

"But those are consequences we have to be willing to deal with because we feel strongly about the issue at hand, which is the right to be able to enter into same-sex marriages."

Clemens and his partner will be married Saturday afternoon in the couple's home.