Installation of gay elder overturned
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 13, 1999
A session’s decision to install an openly gay elder in defiance of the denomination’s constitution has been overturned.
The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Northeast, in a ruling distributed to parties on October 13, said the session of First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, Conn., failed to question a homosexual elder sufficiently to determine if the elder should be installed. It also said the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Southern New England erred by approving the session’s decision to install the elder.
The synod commission ordered the following:
- The session of First Presbyterian Church in Stamford must “re-open and complete the examination” of homosexual elder, Wayne Osborne.
- The presbytery’s permanent judicial commission “shall complete their consideration of compliance” with the PCUSA’s ordination standard “with the information received from the re-examination of Osborne.”
- The stay of Osborne’s installation continues until the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Southern New England finally decides the case.
Examining the key issue
The examination of Osborne was the central issue in the case. Osborne was an elder when he was elected to serve a new term. Prior to that election, he had stated on the floor of presbytery that he was homosexual.
But the session and the presbytery’s judicial commission decided that there was never a self-acknowledgement by Osborne that his relationship was sexually active.
In a speech to the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, Blair Moffett, the minister of First Presbyterian, described what Osborne told the session during an interview after his election. “We asked him, ‘Are you in a gay relationship?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ We asked him to describe it. He did and it was wonderful. I asked him if this is a sexually active partnership, and he said, ‘I decline to answer.'”
John Harder, the attorney for the presbytery’s judicial commission, said the denomination’s ordination standard, G-6.0106b, did not require Osborne to “self-acknowledge” his behavior. The constitutional standard requires Presbyterian officers to confine their sexual activity to marriage. It also says, “Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”
‘Chaste in God’s eyes’
According to session minutes, Osborne said, “There are many sins mentioned in the confessions that I believe are outdated or out of step with current teachings and beliefs. I find it difficult to say with integrity that I will repent of those particular sins listed when I don’t acknowledge them to be sin.” He also said his relationship with his gay partner was “chaste in God’s eyes.”
The synod commission found “three deficiencies in the session’s examination” of Osborne:
“First, the FPC session failed to explore with Osborne what he meant by his expression ‘chaste in God’s eyes.’ Lacking an explanation of Osborne’s intended meaning by this characterization means that the session failed to complete their examination.
“Secondly, Osborne’s indication that ‘there are many “sins” mentioned in the confessions that I believe are outdated or out of step with current beliefs and teachings’ opens an area of further question that session cannot let stand without further information to enable the session to make an informed decision regarding the candidate’s qualification to be installed as an elder in active service.
“Finally, Osborne’s response, ‘I decline to answer this question’ when asked, ‘Is this a sexually active partnership?’ leaves the issue in limbo. Session at this point had an obligation to ask Osborne to explain his response, as pertinent to the issue of eligibility in light of Osborne’s earlier comment as well as the express standard in G-6.0106b, second sentence.”
One ruling favors presbytery
The synod commission did rule in favor of the presbytery’s commission on one point. That ruling denied the complainants’ contention that church documents and letters showed that First Presbyterian’s pastor and the session intentionally violated the constitution.
For instance, in one letter to the session, Moffett said that installation of Osborne would violate the constitution. Other documents, including session minutes and a letter to the congregation, made similar statements. During their testimony, Moffett and others denied that there was any willful violation of the constitution.
The synod commission said, “The official minutes, letters and exhibits entered as evidence were weighed against and taken into consideration along with the testimony at trial and were considered in total.” The commission cited a church case in which another commission ruled that “judgments of a lower court on factual issues are favored with a presumption of correctness and are not to be disturbed unless plainly or palpably wrong, without supporting evidence, or manifestly unjust.”
‘Knew what they were doing’
Commission member Dean Weaver, a Buffalo, N.Y., minister, did not agree with the majority that Moffett and the session did not intentionally violate the constitution. In his dissent, Weaver said that First Presbyterian Church in Stamford “knew well what they were doing as they studied matters related to G-6.0106b thoroughly for over two years.”
He said minutes approved and entered into the permanent record “must be accorded due study and weight – at least equal to that of any apparent contradictions taken in oral testimony.” Weaver said the finding of the presbytery’s commission was “plainly wrong.”
Synod commission members Judith A. Wollenberg, Catherine T.R. MacDonald and Susan G. De George wrote a dissent opposing the re-examination of Osborne and reconsideration by the presbytery’s judicial commission. “We believe that, while one’s freedom of conscience must be exercised within certain bounds, it is ultimate the ‘responsibility of the governing body in which he or she serves’ to determine whether or not the candidate ‘has departed from the essentials of Reformed faith and polity,'” they said.