After three years, elder gets day in court in gay-installation case
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 27, 2003
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – After three years of judicial wrangling – and investigations of his family – Daniel McKittrick finally got his day before the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The issue began when the session of West End Presbyterian Church in Albany, N.Y., voted April 29, 2000, to silence McKittrick during a session meeting. McKittrick, an elder, was not allowed to question a homosexual elder who was being examined before being re-installed as a member of the session following a congregational election. The homosexual elder, Scott Edwards, was installed April 30, 2000, for a three-year term.
In his remedial complaint, which had been dismissed by presbytery and synod courts, McKittrick told the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly that he merely wanted the court to declare that his session had not followed the constitutional process, which allows session members to question candidates for office.
He said he was not seeking to vilify Edwards, but that he felt it was the duty of the session to ask Edwards whether he was complying with G-6.0l06b, the “fidelity/chastity” ordination requirement in the PCUSA Constitution.
McKittrick said he sought to press that question after Edwards told the session that he was involved in a long-time homosexual relationship with another man and that he did not intend to abide by church law. That prompted the session to vote that only pre-selected questions would be asked of Edwards and two other candidates.
Members of the General Assembly court, meeting in Kansas City on Feb. 27-28, asked McKittrick and the Rev. Jerry McKinney, a New York pastor who represented the respondents, a number of questions before ending the hearing. They are scheduled to prepare a response and mail it to the particpants in the next few days before they make their decision public.
Most of the questions seemed sympathetic to McKittrick. There was no evidence to dispute his allegations. McKinney argued that there could be no relief granted because McKittrick failed to get a stay of enforcement that would have delayed Edwards’ installation. Edwards has completed his three-year term.
But McKittrick said he didn’t know about a stay of enforcement and, besides, there was little time between the session’s approval of Edwards’ election Saturday and the installation during the worship service the next day.
“I don’t want to punish anyone,” McKittrick said. “I just want the process to be corrected.”
For much of the “process,” McKittrick and his wife found themselves on the defensive. A presbytery investigating committee – with Edwards being a member – was formed to determine whether they were slandering Edwards and others and disturbing the peace of the church. Nothing came of those accusations.
McKittrick told the court that he was in a decided minority in his 100-member congregation (he estimated 20 to 30 attend worship services) and the presbytery because of his support for following the denomination’s constitutional process on the ordination issue.
“I’ll never be elected as a participant in the General Assembly process,” the engineer said.
Noting how much time had elapsed since the day he was silenced by other elders, McKittrick said he asks himself; “Does this really matter? Is it important that the process be conducted with integrity or that the elder get installed? If we throw our process out the window, there goes our Presbyterianism. What do we have to offer if we do that?”
He said he believed his case was a constitutional issue, not a gay-rights issue.
The Permanent Judicial Commissions of the presbytery and synod never conducted a trial, McKittrick said, and both dismissed his complaint after ruling that he failed to state a claim for relief.
General Assembly court member Gwen Cook asked McKittrick if the files in the case constituted sufficient evidence for the church’s highest court to make a ruling or should the court send it back to the synod for a trial.
“I think you definitely have enough,” he said.
After the hearing, McKittrick told The Layman Online that the experience of filing the case and taking it to the church’s highest court had been draining. He said he never intended to go to battle against gay rights activists in his church and presbytery and that he regrets the way he and his family have been treated. “There are a couple of self-appointed guillotines in the presbytery,” he said.
He said he hopes not to have to take on another church court case, but “if anyone needs help, I would. There’s nothing like standing firm or facing your own fears.”