Presbyterians Urge Ban on Same-Sex Unions

In a new setback to the gay rights movement, the highest legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) called Friday for an outright ban on the blessing of same-sex unions by its ministers.

The sharply divided 268-251 vote by the church’s General Assembly in Long Beach followed a week of wrenching debate, fervent prayer and the arrest last Sunday of 80 pro-gay activists from a cross-section of other churches who peacefully demonstrated in favor of same-sex unions.

If the constitutional amendment approved here is ratified at the grass-roots level by a majority of the denomination’s 173 regional governing bodies, known as presbyteries, it would represent a sharp departure from the denomination’s current tolerant attitude toward same-sex unions.

It would also align the Presbyterian Church with the nation’s two largest Protestant denominations--the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church--both of which unambiguously declared in May that homosexual acts are contrary to Scripture.

The same month, the Presbyterian Church’s highest court, the Permanent Judicial Commission, ruled that its constitution, the Book of Order, was silent on the issue of same-sex unions. Thus, the court declared, a minister’s only obligation is to make it clear to the gay or lesbian couple that their ceremony is in no way to be confused with a traditional wedding between a man and a woman.

The ruling outraged traditionalist Presbyterians, who mounted a drive before the General Assembly, meeting at the Long Beach Convention Center, to close what they saw as a loophole that allowed the church to stray from a traditional biblical understanding of sexual morality.

It was the third time in six years that the General Assembly addressed the issue. The 1994 convention approved a proposed amendment flatly banning same-sex unions but the amendment failed to win the required majority of the church’s 171 presbyteries. That could happen again. But conservatives have served notice that they will embark on a grass-roots campaign to win approval at the presbytery level.

Meanwhile, one pro-gay group, More Light Presbyterians, vowed to match conservative efforts to prevent the proposed amendment from becoming law.

Whatever happens in the next year, it was clear from the debate in Long Beach that the issue will not soon be resolved. The vote underscored wide divisions over homosexual issues that have dogged mainline denominations.

Next week, the 2.4-million-member Episcopal Church is expected to take up issues of human sexuality when it holds its triennial General Convention in Denver.

In a one-hour debate that ended Friday night, traditionalists repeatedly called on the church to stand up for biblical morality. They said they were offended that Presbyterian ministers have been blessing same-sex unions, saying it embarrassed them--particularly in the eyes of Christians from other countries.

“Our traditional view of marriage is being threatened by the allowance of same-sex unions in the church and society,” elder Pamela Metherell of Orange County’s Los Ranchos Presbytery said. “We live in times of moral and ethical confusion and our church must speak now with a voice of clarity on these matters, especially to our children.”

Others, including the father of a gay man, pleaded for the defeat of the amendment. “People coming before us asking us to bless their relationships are not strangers from outer space,” said the Rev. Rick Carlson of Kentucky. “They are our friends, our kids, our children. . . . Suddenly as they find the courage to come out of the closet they are no longer seen by us as ‘Johnny’ and ‘Judy,’ but as outsiders, not-OK people. We see them as ‘unrepentant, self-avowed homosexuals.’ This [characterization] is deeply offensive to me.”

Others like the Rev. George McCall of Missouri said there was a contradiction between criticizing the lifestyle of some homosexuals while opposing a holy union service. “We may not condemn homosexuals and call them promiscuous and then fail to provide some form of support when they seek to be monogamous, loving, giving. We are dealing with lives, not ideas,” McCall said.

Traditionalists, however, insisted that to oppose homosexual acts was not to hate homosexuals. Youth delegate Elizabeth O’Brien of Virginia said Christians had a responsibility to provide what she called a clean standard for new generations. “If we bless what God condemns, what kind of standard are we setting?” she asked. She added that Christians can love and accept homosexuals but not their “sexual orientation.”

Her view was underscored by Jenny Mau of Iowa. She said she was acquainted with a man who was a freedom fighter in Holland during World War II against the Nazis. “He learned during dark days of that war that the only way to combat the evil of the time was to take a firm stand at an early stage and say enough is enough,” Mau said. That time, she said, has come for the Presbyterian Church.

The debate prompted one speaker to remark that people on both sides seemed very sure of their positions. “There is an exhilarating absence of self-doubt,” said Fred Cook of Houston. He called for another year of reflection.

But delegates, though deeply divided in the end, brooked no further delays. They defeated a substitute motion maintaining the status quo on a 247 to 273 vote.

Earlier, on a 427-74 vote, delegates overwhelmingly reelected the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick to another four-year term as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly. Kirkpatrick was opposed by a conservative minister from Texas, the Rev. Winfield “Casey” Jones, who was critical of what he saw as the church’s liberal drift on issues of human sexuality. Jones had charged that Kirkpatrick had failed to defend the church’s constitution in the face of the judicial decision that permitted same-sex unions.