Complaint filed over gay elders
The Layman Online, March 18, 2002
After First Presbyterian Church in Baldwin Park, Calif., publicly acknowledged in a church newsletter that the session had violated church law by ordaining homosexual elders, the session of another California church filed a remedial church court case.
In its complaint, the session of Michillinda Presbyterian Church in Pasadena asked the presbytery court to order the Baldwin Park session to apologize to the presbytery, each of the congregation’s members, other congregations in the presbytery and the entire mailing list of the The Messenger, the Baldwin Park newsletter.
A remedial action – as opposed to a disciplinary case – does not call for punishment of individuals for constitutional violations.
In The Messenger’s January 2002 edition, Charles R. Houdek noted that Baldwin Park was “brought to the floor” of the presbytery in 1994 after taking “an ‘irregular’ action” by ordaining a homosexual elder. “We repeated what was called an irregularity again when we ordained another homosexual person as an elder, and we repeated that irregularity once again on December 16, 2001, when we ordained a third homosexual person,” Houdek said.
The complaint cited The Messenger’s public acknowledgement of its irregularities, Scripture that addresses homosexual practice, The Book of Confessions and the “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard in the Book of Order.
In calling for an apology by the session, the complaint said it should include, but not be limited to, the following:
- 1. Admission of full responsibility as to the substance of this complaint – a clear acknowledgement that the said irregularity was in violation of the polity of the PCUSA.
- 2. Acknowledgement of the embarrassment they caused other Presbyterians by their actions.
- 3. Acknowledgement of the semblance of division expressed through such actions.
- 4. Acknowledgement of their intention to abide by present policy as they seek to effect change.
- 5. Assurance that their conscientious dissent will not seek to overstep the bounds of polity either now or in the foreseeable future.
- 6. Assurance of good will toward the complainants and others who may have been upset by their action.
Baldwin Park is a 35-member congregation that has lost more than 50 percent of its membership in the past 10 years.