wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Committee approves call for deletion of G-6.0106b

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Note #7739 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Committee approves call for deletion of G-6.0106b
GA03049

Committee approves call for deletion of G-6.0106b

If Assembly agrees, presbyteries would have to be polled again

by Emily Enders Odom

DENVER, May 27 - After more than three hours of debate, the Committee on
Church Orders and Ministry approved an overture Tuesday that calls for the
deletion of the "fidelity and chastity" provision of the PC(USA)
constitution.

	If the Assembly concurs, the 173 presbyteries of the Presbyterian
Church (USA) would undertake a third up-or-down vote on the measure. In
previous votes after the Assemblies of 1997 and 2001, efforts to delete
failed by large margins in votes of the presbyteries. 

The contested provision, G-6.0106b in the Book of Order, says candidates for
ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA) must live either "in fidelity
within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in
singleness." It is often invoked as a prohibition of the ordination of
sexually active gay and lesbian candidates.

 In addition to calling for the deletion of G-6.0106b, the overture would
modify G-6.0106a, which describes the qualities or "gifts" a candidate for
ordination should exhibit; and adopt an "authoritative interpretation" that
would in essence annul previous Assembly actions having to do with the
ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians.

The overture, 03-07, from the Presbytery of Des Moines, was approved by a
vote of 35-29-2.

Earlier, the committee defeated a motion to refer 03-07 to the Theological
Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church. Advocates of that
course intend to file a minority report.

	"Do not fear sending this out to the presbyteries," said the Rev.
Michael Smith, the overture advocate. "They're getting better and better
about discussing it."  

	"Don't be concerned about the pain if it doesn't pass the
presbyteries," he added. "The pain is in the waiting. It's been 25 years.
Does it have to be longer?"  

	Among those who opposed the overture was elder Gary Clickard of the
Presbytery of St. Augustine in Florida. "This is the fourth time we have
considered this as a body," he said. "We should keep in mind the people we
are representing.  They want G-6.0106b to remain in."

	G-6.0106b was added to the Book of Order in 1997. The Assembly church
orders and ministry committee referred a similar overture to the 2002
Assembly, but that Assembly refused to forward it for a presbytery vote.

	Janet Sims, an elder from Grace Presbytery in Texas, was among a
number of committee members who noted that the Rev. Susan R. Andrews, the
newly elected moderator of the 215th General Assembly, said before her
election that this is not the time to act on this issue.  

	"I agree with people on the other side that said there is a process
in place," Sims said. "We need to give the task force time to do its work.
God's delay is not God's denial. God has His own time schedule."

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