Presbyterian decisions back gays

Christian Century, Dec 15, 1999

A Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) tribunal ruled November 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 opponents vowed to appeal, keeps alive the 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.

Julius B. Poppinga, a Presbyterian traditionalist from Montclair, New Jersey, 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, members of the West Jersey Presbytery (a local administrative body) 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 is gay and does not plan to live 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 actually ordained Van Keuren but had only accepted him as a candidate for ordination, and in fact had advised him that 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 efforts are being made to change the ordination rules.)

Presbytery officials were tightlipped 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, New Jersey, 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."

Gary R. Griffith, a church leader from Ocean City, New Jersey, 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 (U.S.A.)." Poppinga predicted that the decision in the New York case will encourage the continued practice of same-sex ceremonies. --RNS