Jun 23, 2006  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted against opening the doors of ordination to gays in sexual relationships, but gay Presbyterians said important steps were taken at the denomination’s 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., this week.

Delegates at the General Assembly — a biannual conference where official business is conducted for the 2.3 million-member church — voted 405-92 in support of maintaining church policy restricting ordination to those who practice “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

Gay Presbyterians and their supporters were lobbying for the “fidelity-chastity” provision to be removed from the Presbyterian Book of Order, which would pave the way for non-celibate gay men and lesbians to serve in the church’s three leadership positions — deacon, elder and minister.

“What they’re saying is they think the Presbyterian Church is for heterosexuals only, the gospel is for heterosexuals only, and LGBT persons are not created equally in God’s eyes as heterosexuals,” said Michael Adee, national field organizer for More Light Presbyterians, a gay spiritual group.

For the past two years, More Light has lobbied regional groupings of churches known as presbyteries, getting 22 of them to submit “ordination overtures” aimed at repealing the “fidelity-chastity” policy from the Book of Order. The June 20 vote overwhelmingly rejecting the overtures was not surprising, said Adee, considering it came moments after a “spirited” three-hour debate and a much closer vote on a related matter.

‘Scruple’ angers conservatives

That discussion centered on a report from the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity & Purity, which recommended no changes be made to the church’s ordination policies at this year’s General Assembly. Once the task force recommendation passed 298-221, Adee said the vote on excising the “fidelity-chastity” provision was essentially moot.

But the theological task force vote also allows gay ordination candidates to declare a “scruple,” which Adee described as an exception from the church constitution granted by local congregations. Conservative Presbyterians who have threatened to break from the church if the “fidelity-chastity” clause was removed were still incensed by passage of the task force recommendations.

By adopting the “scruple” exemption for gay clergy candidates, the church “has forsaken its constitutional covenant, abandoned its Presbyterian heritage and opened the door to the blatant disregard of biblical standards, paving the way for a climate in which, ‘Each does what is right in his own eyes,’” according to a statement released by David Henderson and Dean Weaver, who lead a secession movement called the New Wineskin Initiative.

“Tuesday’s actions of the General Assembly … have turned Presbyterianism on its head,” Henderson and Weaver said.

Gay Presbyterians also celebrated the defeat of two other proposals, including one that would have made it more difficult for ministers to bless or recognize same-sex unions.

Adee, who is an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe, N.M., also lauded the election of Rev. Joan Gray as the spiritual leader of the Presbyterian Church until the next General Assembly in two years. Gray, who was a minister in the Greater Atlanta Presbytery, supported maintaining the “fidelity-chastity” policy, but Adee described her as “a fair person who is seeking.”

“She’s on her own personal journey about what she does about the church’s ordination policies,” said Adee, who noted that gay activists met with Gray shortly after her June 15 election.

“She listened with a very clear sincerity,” he said.

During a candidate forum at the General Assembly, Gray said she has “great respect for gay and lesbian people who want to be accepted for who they are and who want to do the work to which they feel called,” but said her heart did not yet move her to support ordination for gays.

“I don’t feel homosexuality is God’s will for creation,” Gray said, according to the Presbyterian News Service. “It’s uncomfortable feeling that way, but I’m comfortable being uncomfortable until the ‘still small voice’ speaks to my soul and I’m convicted otherwise.”