ATLANTA - A national religious leader has removed his name from a first-of-its-kind declaration rejecting same-sex marriages in Christian churches, saying it could be interpreted as an attack on homosexual couples.
Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said Friday he should not have signed the ''Christian Declaration of Marriage'' without the approval of the council's 26 member communions. He offered a ''personal apology to those I hurt by that signature.''
''I realized over the last 24 to 48 hours that I made a mistake,'' said Edgar, who made his announcement on the final day of the group's annual General Assembly.
The declaration, signed Tuesday at the U.S. Catholic bishops' fall conference, defines marriage as ''a holy union of one man and one woman'' and calls for ''a stronger commitment to this holy union'' and ''practical ministries and influence for reversing the course of our culture.''
It was signed by Bishop Anthony O'Connell of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; Bishop Kevin Mannoia, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and Edgar.
A task force made up of representatives from each group - including the National Council of Churches - drafted the declaration.
''I'm disappointed that Dr. Edgar and the NCC have withdrawn their names,'' said Mannoia, who convened the task force. ''We felt like this was a very strong table of unity on this particular issue of marriage which is so vital to our culture, and so I'm disappointed that they've chosen to withdraw from that document.''
Land said Tuesday that ''broken marriages and counterfeit alternative relationships such as cohabitation and same-sex unions fail to impact and benefit society in the manifold ways that society is blessed by intact, committed heterosexual marriages.''
Edgar said Land's interpretation of the declaration was not his intention.
''I support loving relationships between people. We don't condemn traditional marriages, but we also don't condemn unconventional relationships or relationships between loving, caring people,'' he said.
The NCC membership is divided on the issue of same-sex marriages and homosexuality, and the council has no official position on it. But the council supports civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.
Land said he was surprised when he learned Edgar was going to sign the declaration, which he said he always understood to be an affirmation of heterosexual marriage.
The National Council - comprised of mainline Protestant, black Protestant and Orthodox denominations - has been a leading voice in the movement for Christian unity, or ecumenism, for more than 50 years. But most Christians in the United States are not in the council.
''If the price the NCC demands for ecumenism is the inclusion and acceptance of same-sex marriages, that will never happen, and never is a long time. That's not open for discussion within the evangelical, the Southern Baptist or Roman Catholic communions,'' Land said.
