PCUSA’s prohibition of Spahr
call negated by new statement
The Layman, July 11, 2008
By nullifying previous statements on homosexual behavior, the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) overturned a 1993 decision concerning well-known lesbian activist Jane Spahr. That decision prohibited her call to become minister in a Rochester, N.Y., congregation.
An advisory opinion, issued under the direction of Gradye Parsons, the denomination’s new stated clerk, listed the Spahr case as one of several negated by the General Assembly when it adopted a new authoritative interpretation.
The new statement says, “Interpretive statements concerning ordained service of homosexual church members by the 190th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the 119th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and all subsequent affirmations thereof, have no further force or effect.”
Spahr’s call to Downtown Rochester, N.Y., in 1985 occurred before presbyteries voted in 1997 to ratify a constitutional amendment that required candidates for deacon, elder and minister to live in fidelity in a marriage between a man and a woman or in chastity if single.
But the southern and northern mainline denominations that became the PCUSA in 1983 approved identical statements that said in part: “For the church to ordain a self-affirming, practicing homosexual person to ministry would be to act in contradiction to its charter and calling in Scripture, setting in motion both within the church and society serious contradictions to the will of Christ” (Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1979, 201; United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1978, 261). After reunion, the General Assembly adopted the same statement as an authoritative interpretation of the church’s constitution.
The Spahr case was instigated in 1991 and settled in 1993. The church court record in her case said, “Ms. Spahr was married December 28, 1964. She and her husband were separated in December 1977 and divorced in 1978. Ms. Spahr developed a friendship with another woman in 1980 and has lived in partnership with that woman since 1985. Although she had been aware of her present sexual orientation for several years, Ms. Spahr publicly acknowledged that orientation after 1978. In 1980 [sic–1982] she resigned from her position with Metropolitan [Community Church, a largely homosexual congregation]. She has not renounced her ordination vows nor has her ordination been set aside and she has been and continues to be a member in good standing of the Redwoods Presbytery in California.”
Spahr has never received a call to a PCUSA congregation since she lost the case. But she has remained active in the denomination promoting the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender agenda and performing marriage services for same-gender couples. She told The Layman recently that she is fully retired, but will continue to officiate at homosexual and heterosexual marriages.