NEWS STORY: Presbyterian decisions back gays

c. 1999 Religion News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ A Presbyterian Church (USA) tribunal ruled Monday (Nov. 22) that a group of South Jersey churches did not violate church laws by accepting a gay man as a candidate for ordination. The ruling, which conservatives vowed to appeal, keeps alive the vicious infighting over homosexuality that has […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ A Presbyterian Church (USA) tribunal ruled Monday (Nov. 22) that a group of South Jersey churches did not violate church laws by accepting a gay man as a candidate for ordination.

The ruling, which conservatives vowed to appeal, keeps alive the vicious infighting over homosexuality that has plagued mainline Protestant denominations throughout the 1990s.


Church leaders did their best to discourage press coverage of the decision, delaying its release and declining any comment. But experts said the case is evidence that the debate continues to be divisive.”Certainly this will stoke the fires,” said Jerry Van Marter, editor of the denomination’s Presbyterian News Service. “The debate has been relatively dormant, but it will burst back into flames.”

In a second matter, the denomination’s Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Northeast ruled that churches can perform same-sex commitment ceremonies as long as they don’t call or consider them legal marriages. The case originated in New York.

Traditionalists have grown increasingly concerned throughout the 1990s that homosexuality _ which they believe is prohibited by the Bible _ was gaining acceptance in their churches. Gay rights activists and their supporters argue that by excluding an entire class of people, the church fails to live out its Christian message.

Julius B. Poppinga, a Presbyterian traditionalist from Montclair, N.J., said he would appeal the same-sex union case and was disappointed by the implications of both decisions.

“I think there is a clamor from the far left,” he said, “and people do not have the inner conviction and fortitude to say, `Enough is enough.’ They continue to indulge it, and they get more convoluted and confused in their own position.”

In the New Jersey case, conservatives within the West Jersey Presbytery brought an action earlier this year after church leaders approved Graham Van Keuren, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, as a candidate for ordination.

Van Keuren told officials he was gay and did not plan on living a celibate life.


After a bitter and hard-fought national battle, Presbyterians had voted in 1997 to ban “practicing” (noncelibate) homosexuals from ordination.

Lawyers for the presbytery argued that because they had not ordained Van Keuren _ in fact, had advised him he could not be ordained under current church law _ they had not broken the law, known as Amendment B. (Activists say it is important that gays not be excluded from the process while they try to change the ordination rules.)

Presbytery officials were tight-lipped Monday about the implications of the decision, refusing to be drawn into the debate.

“This is not a victory or a loss,” said John H. Reisner III, a Haddonfield, N.J., lawyer who represented the presbytery. “This is a determination that a governing body acted in the scope of its authority and properly in keeping with Presbyterian law.”

Reisner referred to his opponents as “brothers and sisters in Christ” who went to court seeking a clarification of ecclesiastical law.

“They are still our fellow Christians,” he said. “They are us.”

Gary R. Griffith, a church leader from Ocean City, N.J., who represented the plaintiffs, vowed to appeal.


“We believe the decision ignores the constitution of the church as a whole,” Griffith said. “The integrity of the ordination process is weakened in this accommodation to the candidate seeking to administer the word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).”

Poppinga said the decision in the New York case will encourage the continued practice of same-sex ceremonies.

Frederick Clarkson, a spokesman for the Institute for Democracy Studies, a New York think tank, said the decision is a setback for conservatives who he feels are trying to expand the definition of Amendment B. But he said his organization remains concerned about the direction the church has taken in regard to homosexuals.

“The goal is to marginalize homosexuality within the church,” he said of efforts by traditionalists.

IR END CHAMBERS

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