The nation's tenth-largest Christian denomination approved a measure that lifts a more than decade-long ban on ordaining openly LGBT clergy. But a few hours after the vote, delegates to the Presbyterian's 219th General Assembly in Minneapolis, Minn., declined to reformulate its understanding of marriage to include same-sex couples.
Both votes in Minneapolis on July 8 were close, with ordination equality passing 373 to 323a margin of 53 percent to 46 percent. The vote to table marriage equality by accepting a final committee report to preserve the current marriage status quo passed 348 to 324 with six abstentionsa slim margin of 51 percent to 49 percent. Consequently, the Presbyterians failed to give pastors discretion to marry same-sex couples in states with civil marriage equality, including Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.
The General Assembly, moreover, approved a measure proposed by the Board of Pensions to extend health care benefits to same-sex partners and spouses, including dependent children. On July 9, the vote to approve passed 366-287, with nine abstentions.
In striking down the celibacy requirement, the Presbyterian Church/USA adopted "one standard for all," said Michael Adee, executive director of More Light Presbyterians ( www.mlp.org ) , an LGBT advocacy organization. "Instead of looking at one's marital status or sexual orientation or gender identity, it's about a person's life, faith, and character," he said.
Previously, candidates for ordination such as ministers, deacons and elders were held to a "fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness clause," which in effect Adee said "mandated compulsive heterosexuality" or the imposition of celibacy or chastity, depending on how one reads the text."
Under the new overture, the wording of "joyful submission to worship of Christ" replaces the language of "fidelity" and "chastity."
For ordination equality to become church law, however, it must be approved by ratification votes in a majority of the 173 U.S. governing bodies or presbyteries.
Harry Knox, religion and faith director for the Human Rights Campaign, voiced hope that church presbyteries will ratify the equal ordination overture. "The last time, they fell short but it was pretty close," he said. This time, Knox said, the LGBT affinity groups, namely, More Light and That All May Freely Serve ( www.tamfs.org ) , another LGBT Presbyterian advocacy group, have "solidified their support for ordination" through "detailed process of public education" with a "priority to move presbyteries" that need to be brought along.
Meanwhile, the close vote to dodge marriage equality took some delegates by surprise. Earlier in the week the assembly's committee on Civil Union and Marriage had voted 38-18 to change the church constitution's understanding of marriage as a covenant between "two people" rather than "a man and a woman."
The change, a committee statement said, "Would recognize committed, lifelong relationships that are already being lived out by our members."
"We Presbyterians like to study, which is not a bad thing," Cindy Bolbach, a church elder and the assembly's elected moderator, told the Associated Press.
The assembly's deferral buys time for the 2.8 million-member mainstream Protestant denomination, enabling Presbyterians, least for now, to side step controversy as the Church studies the issue for the next two years.
But some marriage equality supporters voiced disappointment over the assembly's deferral.
"I am disappointed," said the Rev. Shawna Bowman, who serves as a chaplain at Rush University City Hospital. "Change is inevitable. The longer we drag out feet, the less relevant we're going to be to communities that already minister to LGBTQ individuals."
The marriage piece is particularly disheartening for Bowman, who attended the assembly and is affiliated with That All May Freely. "I think we made conscious decision to bury our heads in the sand and operate out of fear," she said. "We're afraid of this and are not going to go there," leaving "LGBT individuals out to dry," as well as "pastors who are having to make difficult decisions every day" about "how to navigate pastoral care and these [ same-sex ] relationships without any guidance."
Still, other LGBT advocates rejoiced over the Presbyterian embrace of ordination equality.
"Certainly the vote on ordination, and even getting the marriage vote out of committee, was a huge step forward," said More Light's executive director Adee.
Adee added, "This says to LGBT people of faith within the Presbyterian Church/USA and in other faith traditions that you are morally and spiritually equal, which is a life-giving and life-saving blessing."
For Adee, the assembly's action sends a "clear message," he said, the denomination recognizes that "all children of as created in the image of God" and all Presbyterians are "welcomed and affirmed within our tradition."
He also said the move to fuller inclusion "encourages us to be live out our baptismal vows" to "support and nurture in faith this child into adulthood." In other words, "there are no conditions," he explained. "We don't say when a 15-year-old says he's gay that we are going to withhold those promises."
Historically, the river of equal ordination runs through Chicago. During the summer of 1974, the Rev. David Sindt, a graduate of the McCormick Theological Seminary, held up a large sign at that year's General Assembly. It read: "Is anyone else out there gay?"
The lifelong Presbyterian's visibility and outreach enabled him and others to found Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. Eventually that group became More Light.
The late Rev. Sindt came to Chicago in 1970 to work for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. He worshiped at Lincoln Park Presbyterian where in 1972 the local governing body of the church called Sindt to serve as part-time assistant pastor and minister to the gay community. But the Chicago presbytery twice blocked the call. Sindt died in 1986 of complications from AIDS. In 1995 Sindt was inducted posthumously into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
©2010 Chuck Colbert. All rights reserved.