2004 General Assembly sent mixed signals on ‘marriage’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 14, 2005
In its on-again, off-again votes on whether to support civil marriage for same-gender couples, the Presbytery of Baltimore may have been looking over its shoulder at the actions of the 216th General Assembly.
To read the full text of the General Assembly actions cited in this story, go to the 2004 General Assembly Tracker and type key words cited in resolutions into the search engine. But the General Assembly commissioners sent mixed signals: It decided to try to go in opposite directions at the same time.
The 2004 commissioners did not suggest any change in the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Book of Order is explicit: It recognizes as legitimate only marriage between a man and a woman – not between people of the same sex – both in civil and church unions.
Here’s what W-4.9001 says:
- Marriage is a gift God has given to all humankind for the wellbeing of the entire human family. Marriage is a civil contract between a woman and a man. For Christians marriage is a covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship. In a service of Christian marriage a lifelong commitment is made by a woman and a man to each other, publicly witnessed and acknowledged by the community of faith.
But the commissioners approved, by a vote of 386-122, a single resolution that supported civil marriage for same-gender couples and affirmed the PCUSA constitutional definition of marriage.
That resolution urged Congress “to recognize all civil unions licensed and solemnized under state law to apply in all federal laws that provide benefits, privileges, and/or responsibilities to married persons.” Then, the final paragraph of that resolution affirmed “the Presbyterian Church’s historic definition of the meaning of marriage as ‘a civil contract between a woman and a man.'”
Near the end of the 2004 General Assembly, commissioners approved a measure that is also at cross-purposes with the denomination’s constitution.
By a vote of 350-132, they approved a resolution urging Virginia to reconsider its law that ended contractural rights for same-sex partners. The rationale for that overture complained that the Virginia law would ban any “partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage.”
Further, the overture declared, “This assembly notes with shock and dismay the far-reaching effort to reject any claims of gays and lesbians to basic respect or legal standing for their long-term, committed relationships.”
The commissioners approved another resolution expressing the same kind of either/or policy on marriage. That resolution prohibited the denomination’s lobby, the Washington Office, from weighing in on either side of the debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment.
The resolution took a firm stand against taking a stand. “Nothing the 216th General Assembly (2004) has said or acted upon is to be construed to state or imply a position for or against the Federal Marriage Amendment. General Assembly entities shall not advocate for or against the Federal Marriage Amendment.”
The Federal Marriage Amendment would say essentially the same thing that the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA): A marriage is a union only of a man and a woman.