Gay activist calls task force recommendations ‘a call to continue prejudice and discrimination’
The Layman Online, September 1, 2005
A leader in a gay activist group is attacking the report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, saying that it is a “call to continue prejudice and discrimination” in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Michael J. Adee, national field organizer for More Light Presbyterians – one of a handful of small, special-interest groups that have been lobbying for the denomination to end its historic and Biblical prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals as ministers, elders and deacons – says the task force’s recommendations “encourage spiritual violence against us by calling for more rigorous examinations focused upon sexuality rather than faith. Heterosexist and homophobic assumptions persist within this report and its recommendations assuming moral fitness with persons merely in heterosexual marriages and assuming immorality with persons who fall in love with those of the same sex.”
Adee, whose group also opposes the denomination’s Biblical definition of marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman, said such “appalling categorical prejudice and discrimination is not only not rational or logical, it is not consistent with the Gospel, the example of Jesus and his teachings or how to live together in Christian community. Such prejudice, a call for a moratorium on seeking justice and a call to continue discrimination against LGBT persons of faith must surely break the heart of God.”
“This report and its recommendations,” Adee wrote in a statement published on his organization’s Web site, “are a barrier to evangelism, to the sharing and living out of the good news of the Gospel. It has made the Presbyterian Church (USA) less welcoming, less inclusive, and less safe.”
He said there will be those “who will see this report and its recommendations as sanctions for prejudice, hate speech and hate crimes,” and that “instead of building bridges between persons and families, this report builds walls.”
Adee then praised other denominations, such as the United Church of Christ and the United Church of Canada, that have approved gay ordination and same-sex marriages, saying that “this could be the Presbyterian Church (USA) and we still have the opportunities to pray, seek and work for that change.”