Task force to prohibit press coverage of key discussions
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 15, 2004
LISLE, Ill. – The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (USA) decided Wednesday morning, the opening of a three-day meeting near Chicago, to prohibit press coverage of key discussions.
The 20-member task force voted 19-1 to go into executive session for four hours Friday. The agenda for the meeting bills that time for “Sharing about the Personal, Church and World Contexts of Our Work.”
The Rev. John “Mike” Loudon of Lakeland, Fla., cast the only vote against closing the meeting.
It was unclear exactly what the task force would discuss behind closed doors. The Rev. Jack Haberer of Houston asked for some clarification. The Rev. Sarah Grace Sanderson-Doughty, who proposed the closed session, said, “It is yet evolving what will happen.”
Since the 215th General Assembly in 2003 exempted the task force from the open-meetings requirements of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the task force has increasingly resorted to closed meetings to shield its members from press coverage.
Before the vote on executive sessions, the task force members were quite talkative. At the suggestion of Sanderson-Doughty, they talked about themselves and what they left behind to attend the meeting: not much of which was quotable.
The task force spent more than an hour on the ice-breaker, including comments from three visitors – Janie Spahr, Lisa Larges and Paul Peterson, all activists for ordaining practicing homosexuals – and two members of the media.