PCUSA poll on PUP report delayed after stated clerk objected
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 22, 2006
Shortly before the General Assembly convened in June, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick asked the Office of Research Services not to publish the results of a Presbyterian Panel poll that addressed the issues in the report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity.
John P. Marcum, administrator of the panel, said in a memo that he was ready to publish the poll’s results but complied with Kirkpatrick’s request. He said the survey would have provided “commissioners and other interested persons with a current snapshot” of reaction to the task force report. Marcum added that he would publish the report in October – after the fact.
Kirkpatrick, whom Marcum said was worried about the poll influencing the commissioners, repeatedly and publicly commended the work of the task force and its report, calling it “one of the greatest gifts to the church.” But he did not want the commissioners to hear what Presbyterians in local congregations thought about the report.
Contending that Kirkpatrick did not know the results of the survey, Marcum said the stated clerk expressed concern that “there will be constituencies in the church that will be angry at this last-minute addition to the debate.”
But there were other “last-minute” additions to the debate. Both the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, for which Kirkpatrick serves as the staff executive, and the Advisory Committee on the Constitution, supported the report.
Depending on how questions were phrased – and the depth of the understanding of Presbyterians surveyed in the poll – the results might well have reflected previously well-documented opposition to PUP’s authoritative interpretation that allows ordaining bodies to decide that the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” requirement is a nonessential.
Presbyterian Panel polls in 1999, 2002 and 2005 showed consistently strong opposition to ordaining practicing homosexuals. The 1999 poll said 67 percent of the respondents (members, elders, pastors and specialized clergy) opposed ordaining homosexuals. The 2002 poll showed that 62 percent of the members, 64 percent of the elders, 51 percent of the pastors and 28 percent of the specialized clergy were opposed.
The question was phrased differently in the 2005 poll taken before the task force report. Respondents were asked whether they would “‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ like for the PCUSA to ‘permit sexually active gay and lesbian persons to be ordained.” Thirty-three percent of the members, 35 percent of the elders, 46 percent of the pastors and 63 percent of the specialized clergy said they would. If the question had been phrased in the negative, as were the 1999 and 2002 polls, the results would shown that members, elders and pastors were opposed to ordaining homosexuals.
“[I]n a letter to me and without knowledge of the results, Rev. Kirkpatrick has expressed his concern with release of these results so close to the General Assembly meeting, especially since the survey was not requested by the General Assembly or the task force,” Marcum said. “He notes that whatever the survey results, ‘there will be constituencies in the church that will be angry with this last-minute addition to the debate. Furthermore, he sees a possible conflict with church polity, since, as the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) indicates, ‘presbyters are not simply to reflect the will of the people, but rather to seek together to find and represent the will Christ.”
Marcum concluded his memo by referring questions to Mark Tammen, Kirkpatrick’s top legal aide.
The Presbyterian Panel is made up of a representative sample of 5,000 Presbyterians who served for a three-year period and respond to mailed questionnaires four times a year.