UCC official: Giddings Ivory hasn’t asked to ‘unsign’ letter
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, July 16, 2004
Ron Stief, the United Church of Christ official who redistributed on July 12 a letter that lobbied against the Federal Marriage Amendment, said Friday that Presbyterian lobbyist Elenora Giddings Ivory has not asked him to remove her name from the letter.
The 216th General Assembly ordered her and other denominational “entities” on July 2 not to lobby for or against the amendment. Stief, who works with the Justice and Witness Ministries of the UCC, said Giddings Ivory had not contacted him in a month.
But he defended redistribution of the letter, contending that it was not for the purpose of lobbying against the Federal Marriage Amendment but only to provide information.
He also said the letter was not about favoring same-sex marriages. However, in the news release accompanying the June 12 redistribution of the letter two days before the Senate halted its consideration of the proposed amendment, Stief wrote: “On June 2, 2004, a broad coalition of religious leaders released a letter to Congress opposing any amendment to the Constitution that would ban marriage for same-sex couples.”
Stief told The Layman Online Friday that he was not aware that the General Assembly had imposed a gag rule on Giddings Ivory. “I have no idea,” he said. “You guys have to work out your stuff with the Presbyterian Church.”
In any event, the letter was redistributed without hand-written signatures – just a typed listing of names of people from Protestant, Jewish, Universalist, Sikh and other religious backgrounds. Any of the names could have been easily removed before making new copies for redistribution, Stief acknowledged.
During the General Assembly’s debate over whether to impose a gag order on Giddings Ivory, a commissioner asked her what would occur if it did. She said her name would be removed from the letter – but she did not say whether she would take steps to have it removed.
Pressed on whether Giddings Ivory had made any effort to comply with the General Assembly’s order, Stief said, “It’s probably a moot point now. I imagine it’s something she’s going to do.”
He said he, Giddings Ivory and other leaders of like-minded religious lobbying groups will meet Monday in Washington.
“Elenora is usually pretty good about abiding about whatever comes through from the Presbyterian Church,” he said.
But when he was told that Giddings Ivory had declared, as an adjunct to the religious coalition’s lobbying letter, that the Presbyterian Church supported same-sex marriages, contrary to the PCUSA Constitution, Stief said, “I didn’t know about that.”