One successful challenge to PJC nominations
By Robert P. Mills, The Layman Online, June 26, 1999
FORT WORTH – An attempt to address an intentional imbalance on the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission was only partially successful. Two of three challenges to this year’s slate of General Assembly Nominating Committee (GANC) nominees were defeated by the Assembly. Only Christopher Yim, who ran against Albert Butzer to fill the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic position, succeeded. Yim becomes the only Asian-American on the GA PJC.
PJC history
In a 1995 dissenting opinion, seven of the 16 members of the PJC wrote, “to the extend that the opinion assumes that there are circumstances in which a presbytery may take action against a session for the ordination of officers solely because such officers are self-affirming, practicing, unrepentant homosexual persons, we believe that the opinion is erroneous … “
If the General Assembly wishes to change or amend the constitutional law of the church, it must do so in accordance with the Book of Order through established process for amendments” (Remedial Case 208-4, Session of Central Presbyterian Church of Huntington, N.Y., vs. Presbytery of Long Island).
That dissent provided much of the impetus for the decision of the 1996 General Assembly to propose Amendment B, now G-6.0106b of the Book of Order. Stung by this legislative defeat, pro-gay-ordination activists came to the 1997 General Assembly in Syracuse prepared to advance their agenda in the judicial arena.
In Syracuse, two GANC nominations to the GA PJC were defeated by nominations from the floor. The defeated nominees, David Dobler and Philip Hull, were identified as inclined to uphold the denomination’s “fidelity and chastity” ordination standards. Their replacements were opposed to the provision. With that election, a clear majority of the PJC, a rough equivalent to the United States Supreme Court, was on record as opposing G-6.0106b.
Potential constitutional crisis
A number of observers believe that that majority has now increased. With a number of judicial cases concerning the “fidelity and chastity” provision now working their way up the courts of the church, they fear for the peace and unity of the PCUSA if the current PJC provokes a constitutional crisis by ruling that G-6.0106b may, or must, be ignored.