Indeed, it was about same-sex unions
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, March 20, 2001
One of the best-kept secrets of the people who spoke against Amendment O during debates at many presbytery meetings was that the proposal was exactly what its wording said: a measure to prohibit ministers in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from blessing same-sex unions.
Instead, many of its opponents argued that Amendment O was an attempt to restrict pastors and sessions from conducting the kind of “pastoral ministry” their congregations needed. They expressed alarm over the possibility that their freedom would be stripped away by the denomination.
Wooing the center
That strategy was set forth by the Covenant Network of Presbyterians and More Light Presbyterians, two groups in the forefront of the opposition, as they sought to win overthe moderate center of the denomination.
But now that Amendment O has been defeated, there is greater openness about what Amendment O actually said.
Laird Stuart, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco and co-moderator of the Covenant Network, said he will conduct services to bless homosexual couples – if he is asked to. Stuart told the San Francisco Chronicle that no gay couple has asked him to conduct such a service but, by announcing in San Francisco that he was open to blessing such unions, Stuart is likely to get some callers.
Mitzi Henderson, co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, also called for public blessing of same-sex couples, saying that the denomination “cannot continue to ignore the commitments of same-gender couples.”
‘I will break the law’
All along, there have been a few Amendment O opponents who stated their intentions clearly. The Rev. Tricia Dykers Koenig told a workshop at a Covenant Network conference in Pittsburgh last fall, “I hereby admit to you that I will break the law [banning same-sex unions] if it becomes a law.”
Jack Rogers, a candidate for moderator of the General Assembly and one of the key resource people for the Covenant Network, has used language that even some of Amendment O’s most aggressive supporters shy away from.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t care what you call it – marriage, domestic partnership, holy union,” Rogers said in a paper published by More Light Presbyterians. “It is not the form I am interested in, but the function. It seems to me that it is in the best interest of the state and of the church to recognize and encourage persons who are willing to make life-long commitments to each other and to children they raise.”
Jane Spahr, who serves as a “lesbian evangelist” for the gay activist organization That All May Freely Serve, is even less restrained than Rogers. Of gay unions, she says, “These are marriages. These are weddings. And let’s call them what they are.”
“We hope that the defeat of Amendment O is not only about preserving the historic right of sessions and ministers to fulfill pastoral responsibilities, but also about celebrating and supporting mutual and healthy relationships,” More Light Presbyterians and That All May Freely Serve said in a joint statement.
Will unions become common?
But will same-sex ceremonies become commonplace in the denomination?
That’s unknown. Most of the congregations where such services might be expected are affiliated with More Light Presbyterians. The organization lists 103 congregations in 29 states, including 25 in New York.
That’s only about 1 percent of the number of congregations in the denomination. But More Light Presbyterians are more outspoken and political. They have made the acceptance of ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals and permission to conduct same-sex unions almost a litmus test for Christian faith.
One measure of the political strength of More Light Presbyterians and their allies should surface during the 2001 General Assembly. Commissioners will receive somewhere between 24 and 38 overtures calling for deleting or eviscerating G-6.0106b, the Book of Order’s “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard. That means that More Light Presbyterians or their allies convinced somewhere between 14 percent and 24 percent of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries to submit those overtures.
Backlash like Vermont?
Disappointment over the decision against Amendment O is less well organized – but explosive, perhaps signaling a backlash like that in Vermont.
Vermont, which gay activists call the nation’s most “progressive” state on the issue of gay unions, has had hostile legislative response to the first-in-the-nation civil union ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples since it was approved by state legislators less than a year ago.
Republicans, who regained their first majority in 16 years amid anti-civil union sentiment last fall, pushed through the measure to repeal the civil union ceremonies. It was approved by a voice vote that followed an 84-to-15 preliminary vote in its favor.
Although the legislation is not expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, it represents the first significant rebuke to civil unions in a state that has been marked by “Take Back Vermont” protest signs and, unfortunately, anti-gay vandalism since the decision to allow civil unions.