Amendment O – Same-sex unions
By Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service, November 14, 2000
The following background report is provided to assist presbyteries as they vote on proposed amendments to The Book of Order that were approved by the 212th General Assembly (2000).
Amendment O, sent by the 212th General Assembly (2000) to the presbyteries of the PC(USA) for their affirmative or negative votes, would add a new section – W-4.9007 – to The Book of Order.
It reads: “Scripture and our Confessions teach that God’s intention for all people is to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or in chastity in singleness. Church property shall not be used for, and church officers shall not take part in conducting, any ceremony or event that pronounces blessing or gives approval of the church or invokes the blessing of God upon any relationship that is inconsistent with God’s intention as expressed in the preceding sentence.”
The proposed amendment, which came to the General Assembly as Overture 00-26 from the Presbytery of San Joaquin, was recommended for approval by the Assembly Committee on Physical and Spiritual Well-Being by a vote of 25-22, and sent to the presbyteries by a 268-251 vote of the Assembly. To become part of The Book of Order, it must be affirmed by majority votes in at least 87 – a simple majority – of the 173 presbyteries.
The overture was precipitated in part by a series of Permanent Judicial Commission rulings on a case in Hudson River Presbytery involving a number of same-sex union ceremonies conducted at the Dobbs Ferry (N.Y) Presbyterian Church. In that case, church courts ruled that same-sex unions are not flatly prohibited by The Book of Order.
The Book of Order is silent on the matter, although it defines marriage in section W-4.9001as “a covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship.” The 203rd General Assembly (1991) issued an “authoritative interpretation” of the Constitution, stating that sessions should not allow the use of church facilities for same-sex union ceremonies and that Presbyterian ministers should not perform ceremonies that they “determine to be the same as a marriage ceremony.”
The Dobbs Ferry session and pastors argued successfully that, because they did not consider same-sex union ceremonies to be the same as marriage ceremonies, they were not in violation of The Book of Order or of the 1991 General Assembly’s interpretation.
In 1995, a similar attempt to amend The Book of Order to flatly prohibit same-sex union ceremonies in the PC(USA) failed. The 1994 General Assembly sent out an amendment similar to Amendment O, but it failed to gain ratification by the presbyteries, which then numbered 171. The vote was: 73 for, 62 against and 27 favoring “no action.”
The prevailing argument at that time seemed to be that flatly prohibiting same-sex unions was an undue impingement on the pastoral responsibilities of ministers and sessions.