A little more than a week after announcing that Memorial Church would be available to same-sex couples wishing to hold commitment ceremonies, Pusey Minister for Memorial Church Rev. Peter J. Gomes said he believes it is "too early really to tell" what the decision will mean at Harvard and beyond.

So far, the decision has caused few ripples in the Harvard community, but Gomes said he expects some criticism.

"Just because we haven't heard anything yet doesn't mean there isn't anything out there to be heard," he said.

Yesterday, Kelly K. Monroe, who is affiliated with the Cambridgeport Baptist Church and a member of United Ministry said she considers the decision "not surprising but yet, I think, unfortunate."

For members and supporters of the gay community both at Harvard and beyond, the decision, while not surprising to them either, has so far meant satisfaction.

Gomes said he did not presume to speak for the gay community, but he hoped the new policy would help gay people who "hadn't given up religion."

It is "a pastoral concern" that members of the gay community often feel torn between religion and sexuality, he said.

Numerous supporters of gay rights have endorsed the decision, terming it the "right" and "obvious" one.

James M. Slayton, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School (HMS), whose 1993 request to use Memorial Church for a commitment ceremony sparked the process which culminated in the recent policy said he was "thrilled" by the decision.

Slayton said that although he and partner Phillip Hernandez, also an HMS instructor, were turned away by Gomes in 1993 and ultimately were blessed by Rev. G. Steward Barns in nearby Christ Church, he and Hernandez had remained involved in seeking a policy for Memorial Church.

Though Gomes told The Crimson in November that he did not remember having received Slayton and Hernandez's request, he said yesterday that until the adoption of the policy last week, no mechanism existed for dealing with requests for ceremonies not recognized by the state.

According to Gomes, the previously existing policy, which said ceremonies in Memorial Church could only be initiated if the couple possessed a legal document, goes back to the 17th century. For that reason, Gomes said, the Church needed to create new guidelines in order to host union ceremonies.

At some other universities, however, the process toward permitting same-sex commitment ceremonies has been less complex. While Princeton and Emory recently grappled with the issue, Brown University chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson said that union ceremonies have taken place in Brown chapels for more than two decades, though no policy specific to them exists.

To challenge the legitimacy of the commitment ceremonies "we would have had to form a policy against it," Nelson said.

An official in the Columbia University news office said that although no official policy on the ceremonies existed for the campus chapels, he "[didn't] understand why it would be an issue."

"We certainly treat homosexual couples the same as heterosexuals," he said.