Three high-profile gay
ordination requests
await final decisions
By John H. Adams, The Layman, April 30, 2009
Although a majority of presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (USA) have voted to keep the “fidelity/chastity” requirements for church officers in the Book of Order, there remain three high-profile cases involving candidates who are open about their past or current relations with same-gender partners.
The three candidates for ministry of Word and Sacrament are Lisa Larges, a lesbian, in San Francisco, Scott Anderson, a homosexual in Wisconsin, and Paul Capetz, who says he does not currently have a homosexual partner but doesn’t believe G-6.0106b forbids him from having one.
Larges, a staff member for That All May Freely Serve, a gay activist group, has been seeking ordination in the PCUSA for 20 years.
Capetz, a former Union Theological Seminary (Richmond, Va.) professor, was previously ordained as a PCUSA minister but set aside his ordination in 2000 as a protest against the “fidelity/chastity” standard. He is a professor of historical Christianity at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighten, Minn.
Anderson is the executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Formerly ordained, Anderson said he gave up his ordination as a matter of conscience. He served for years as executive director of More Light Presbyterians, one of the special interest groups opposing G-6.0106b.
The current status of the three:
- The Presbytery of San Francisco voted to approve Larges as “ready for examination … with departure.” The departure was to be her objection to G-6.0106b and her belief that it was not an essential Presbyterian belief or polity. But on March 22, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific ruled that the presbytery failed to “execute its constitutional obligations to the entire church to enforce mandatory churchwide ordination standards.” The court did not say whether G-6.0106b was a mandatory requirement, the primary issue in the complaint. Complainants are considering an appeal.
- Capetz applied to the Twin Cities Area Presbytery in August 2007 to be restored to ordained ministry. Stating “I refuse to take a vow of celibacy,” he declared a “scruple” of G-6.0106b, saying it was not essential. The presbytery voted 196-79 in January 2008 to restore Capetz’s ordination.
One presbytery-approved motion accepted Capetz’s argument that G-6.0106b is not an essential. Three members of the presbytery filed a remedial complaint seeking to overturn the restoration of Capetz’s ordination. The synod court dismissed the complaint, but the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the denomination, sent it back to the synod for a new trial. However, the GAPJC did not rule on the substance of the complaint – that G-6.0106b was a constitutional requirement that could not be scrupled.
“This case is not remanded for a determination in the abstract as to whether any presbytery may decide that the ‘fidelity and chastity’ requirement can be waived for any candidate or applicant for membership,” the ruling said. “Rather, the synod PJC shall decide only on the basis of the facts of what the presbytery did with respect to Capetz and whether that particular action was irregular.”
Further, “there is nothing in the record to show that Capetz has taken any action that could be determined to be an act in violation of G-6.0106b.” Capetz had testified that he was not at that time in a homosexual relationship. In previous rulings on similar issues, the GAPJC had declared that the expressed intent to violate the constitution was unconstitutional. - Anderson has passed the first step of the process in John Knox Presbytery without a judicial complaint. The presbytery voted 71-23 in November 2008 to enroll him as a candidate for the ministry. He will be responsible to the Committee on the Preparation for the Ministry and cannot be considered for ordination until November 2009.
Anderson has told The Layman that he believed the PUP report approved by the General Assembly allows presbyteries to decide whether a constitutional requirement is an essential. He said he will scruple G-6.0106b and argue that it is not essential.