No, a Church Was Not Hosting Same-Sex Wedding When It Caught Fire

Contrary to what some anti-LGBTQ+ types have posted online, an inclusive Massachusetts church was not hosting a same-sex wedding when it caught fire in June.

The First Congregational Church of Spencer, located in central Massachusetts, was destroyed June 2 by a fire started by a lightning strike. But no wedding was taking place there at the time — in fact, the church was empty, according to fact checks by the Associated Press, Reuters, and others.

That didn’t keep social media users from posting messages like "Church burnt down by a lightening...during a marriage ceremony of homosexual couple."

The user also wrote that no one survived, while also referencing Sodom and Gomorrah.

Another user wrote that it was a "gay pride church."

“There was no wedding going on and actually the church was closed up and locked. No one was working in the church,” Spencer Fire Chief Robert Parsons told the AP. Also, the church was misidentified as being in Boston, when it’s actually about 60 miles away.

First Congregational Church is inclusive and supportive of LGBTQ+ people, and it’s part of the LGBTQ-friendly United Church of Christ denomination. Even before the allegations that the fire was punishment for hosting a same-sex wedding, its interim pastor, Rev. Bruce McLeod, had said the fire was not an act of God.

“I have to say I don’t think God made the fire,” he said in his June 4 sermon at the First Congregational Church of Leicester, where he is also interim pastor and where Spencer congregants have been meeting since the fire. “I don’t think God makes us sick. I don’t think God makes the bad things happen. I don’t think God does it to teach us things. I don’t think God does it to punish us. I do believe God is there with us in the midst of it, and that God is here with us to help us pick up the pieces and figure out what to do next.”