Hudson River wants to scrap ordination standard it defies
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, December 8, 2005
The Presbytery of Hudson River, which has long defied the denomination’s prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals as church officers, has approved two overtures to take the constitutional ban off the books.
The presbytery’s commissioners recently voted to ask the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to call for a fourth national referendum on G-6.0106b, the “fidelity/chastity” standard in the Book of Order, and to remove the General Assembly’s Authoritative Interpretation that declares that homosexual practice is sinful.
Hudson River is the 15th presbytery to ask the General Assembly to legitimize the ordination of practicing homosexuals. It is also a presbytery that has defied the constitutional prohibition on numerous occasions.
Sixteen of the Hudson River congregations have signed covenants of dissent, declaring that they will not abide by G-6.0106b, and no one has successfully brought a disciplinary action against the presbytery or its dissenting sessions.
Recently, the presbytery ordained Ray Bagnuolo, who has been open about his homosexual relationship with another man, as the pastor of one of the four congregations that submitted the overtures to the presbytery.
The General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission has clearly established that neither the Presbytery of Hudson River nor the sessions of the local congregations in the presbytery have the right to defy the constitution.
In a 2001 case titled Londonderry v. Presbytery of New England, the court said, “Not to comply with the express corporate judgment of the Church in an explicit constitutional provision exceeds the constitutional bounds of freedom of conscience and therefore requires a response of the governing body exercising oversight.”
In that decision, the commission affirmed the right of “decorous dissent,” but said such dissent “may not include an intent by those who have vowed to be governed by the church’s polity to violate the Constitution.”
In another case before the denomination’s highest court, Hudson River Presbytery was the defendant in a complaint that accused the presbytery of allowing the minister of one of its congregations to conduct “same-sex marriages.” In Benton et al v. Presbytery of Hudson River, the Permanent Judicial Commission held that same-sex marriages were constitutionally prohibited.
That court did say that sessions and pastors were allowed to have services in which same-gender couples were “blessed,” but that the services must not be regarded as marriages or include the rituals associated with weddings, such as an exchange of rings. Furthermore, the court said its decision “should not be construed as an endorsement of homosexual conjugal practice proscribed by the General Assembly.”
The fallout from Hudson River Presbytery’s acts of defiance has included a rapid flight of its members from PCUSA congregations in the region – including two entire congregations voting to leave the denomination.
One of the congregations, Circleville Presbyterian Church, had to pay the presbytery $112,500 to keep its property. But its members agreed to do so because they believed their evangelical ministry was seriously threatened by the presbytery’s actions and the refusal of denominational officials to exercise discipline.
The congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Ridgebury, N.Y., is the defendant in a property ownership suit filed by the presbytery in the Orange County District of the New York Supreme Court system. Renamed the Congregation of Ridgebury, the church’s defense includes reference to the presbytery’s hypocrisy in its constitutional defiance in homosexual issues and rigorous prosecution of the PCUSA’s property trust clause.
Between 1997, when G-6.106b became church law, and the end of 2004, membership in Hudson River Presbytery’s congregations has declined by 14.9 percent – 69.1 percent higher than the denomination’s attrition rate in the same period. And the PCUSA has remained on a steady downhill skid, averaging a loss of nearly 50,000 members a year.