wfn.org | Church Orders Committee Sought Not to Delay Justice for Gays

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

GA99081 
23-June-1999 
 
                     Church Orders Committee  
               Sought Not to Delay Justice for Gays 
 
 
FORT WORTH-The Rev. Kathy Runyeon, minister commissioner from Redwoods 
Presbytery and moderator of the Church Orders and Ministry Committee of the 
211th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)  told a press 
conference Wednesday the committee felt they would "delay justice if we 
delay moving on this." 
     The committee Tuesday night approved a recommendation to delete the 
fidelity and chastity requirement for church officers (G-6.0106b) from the 
"Book of Order."  The recommendation will now go to the full Assembly.  If 
it is approved there, it will go to the 173 presbyteries for a vote during 
the coming year. 
     "We're in the middle of a long process of suggesting perhaps opening 
up to a more- inclusive understanding of leadership," Runyeon said.  The 
hope of the persons supporting this recommendation "is that we need to move 
to an understanding that persons who are other than married in a 
male-female relationship or chaste when single still have valuable gifts 
for leadership, and to restrict them from ordained office limits the 
vitality of the church.  I think the folks that forwarded this point of 
view see this as a justice issue, not a morality issue," she said. 
     She said she had not yet seen the minority report, but she said a 
couple of concerns were expressed in committee.  One was around a strategy 
question.  "The church has been in the midst of a debate that has resulted 
in some hard feelings," she said.  "Divisiveness, I think, is not too 
strong a word.  And to send this issue to the presbyteries will continue 
the immediate debate.  So, in terms of strategy, they're thinking it would 
be better to continue dialogue, not to pursue a legislative change. Others 
that were opposed to what we finally approved were opposed because they 
have a strong sense that the standards indicated in the current language 
are an appropriate interpretation of Scriptural standards for our ordained 
leadership." 
     She said it was difficult to say what would happen on the floor of the 
Assembly.  In committee, the advisory delegates were of such numbers that 
the vote would have been close without them, she said.  On the floor of the 
Assembly, their votes are advisory only. 
     Zane Buxton, manager of Judicial Process in the Office of the General 
Assembly, said that even if presbyteries approved deleting G-6.0106b from 
the Book of Order, the authoritative interpretation of 1993 would remain. 
     In 1978 the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and in 1979 the 
Presbyterian Church US approved very similar "definitive guidance" 
statements that permitted the ordination of repentant, non-practicing 
homosexuals but prohibited the ordination of those practicing their 
sexuality.  In 1993, the General Assembly of these two denominations, 
reunited in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), declared the 1978 definitive 
guidance an "authoritative interpretation," binding on governing bodies of 
the church, but not part of the constitution.  This authoritative 
interpretation still stands.   
     Buxton said if G-6.0106b were deleted, the authoritative 
interpretation would stand, but without constitutional backing.  An 
authoritative interpretation can be superseded by a new one provided either 
by a later General Assembly or by the 16-member Permanent Judicial 
Commission (PJC) of the Assembly in connection with a remedial or 
disciplinary case (Book of Order G-13.0103r).    Buxton said the 
constitutional backing makes it much more difficult to change the 
authoritative interpretation. 
     Buxton cited a PJC case preceding the 1996 Assembly in which seven PJC 
members in a concurring opinion said if the question of the ordination of 
practicing gays and lesbians had been before them, "they would have been 
inclined to say that it was inappropriate for us to continue to operate on 
a 1978 policy prohibiting the ordination of practicing homosexual 
persons,"Buxon said. 
     "That scared a number of folks who believe that the standard is an 
appropriate standard. And one of the things they wanted to do was get us 
out of a position where a case might come before the Permanent Judicial 
Commission where they would visit the case in a way that would allow them 
to issue what would essentially be a new authoritative interpretation that 
said it is permissible within the Presbyterian Church to ordain gay and 
lesbian people." 
     As a result, Buxton said, this amendment (G-6.0106b) was brought to 
the Assembly and passed.  He said though G-6.0106b covers heterosexuals 
too, it was primarily in response to the possibility of the ordination of 
practicing homosexuals. 
     Deleting G-6.0106b would put the church back in the position where a 
PJC or General Assembly could issue a new authoritative interpretation that 
would permit the ordinations, Buxton said. 
 
--Bill Lancaster 

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