Badpuppy Gay Today

Thursday, 3 April, 1997

With a Tuesday vote that has split The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) along almost identical lines drawn across the issue of slavery more than a century ago, a majority of the Church's presbyteries, or regional bodies, have voted to limit church offices only to persons who forswear sex outside of opposite-sex marriage. This policy, which for years has caused internal divisions between northern and southern presbyteries, has finally been made law, a rule for which the anti-gay/ anti-lesbian factions successfully struggled to amend their Church's constitution.

"So what if we're out," snipped Ian Finlayson, a one-time Presbyterian church member, "The church needs gays and lesbians more than gays and lesbians need the church. Now, maybe those gay Presbyterians who hang on to the old-fashioned traditions will let go of them."

But active gay Presbyterian opponents of the new ruling vowed to continue their struggle to change their church from within, while others, more ambivalent, felt somewhat troubled by the vote. "Is it really God's will that presbyteries should judge these people unfit for religious office?" ask such ambivalent believers. "I really don't know, except that's how the church voted."

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was formed in 1983 when the southern and northern branches of Presbyterianism reunited, following a bitter schism that had begun in 1861. The vote Tuesday was made largely upon the same regional lines as had occasioned the split in Abraham Lincoln's era. New England, New York, New Jersey and Northern California were heavily opposed to the new anti-gay policy, while the Southeastern states, Texas, Southern California and Pennsylvania voted overwhelmingly for the exclusionary law.

A number of Protestant denominations have, during the last ten years, seen their memberships quarrel openly about the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans, and others have continued to bring the divisive issue to the fore at one annual church convention after another. Believers who oppose the new law insist that Jesus was not an exclusionary exemplar. "Come unto me all ye who hunger and thirst," they quote Jesus' words, putting emphasis on the word "all."

One Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Jan Orr-Harter, insisted that the exclusionary vote was due to the influence of "far right" forces within the church. The Reverend Orr-Harter says that while she feels it important to strengthen families, that she is certain that excluding gay men and lesbians from the ministry of Christ in order to try to do this is "not the answer."

Out of 172 presbyteries voting, sixty-four presbyteries voted to oppose the exclusionary law.