20 March 2015 A.D. NYT: Presbyterians Give Final Approval to Sodomite Marriages
20 March 2015 A.D. NYT: Presbyterians Give Final Approval to Sodomite Marriages
Goodstein, Laurie.
“Largest Presbyterian Denomination Gives Final Approval for Same-Sex Marriage.”
New York Times. 17 Mar 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/presbyterians-give-final-approval-for-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=1. Accessed 18 Mar 2015.
Largest
Presbyterian Denomination Gives Final Approval for Same-Sex Marriage
After three decades
of debate over its stance on homosexuality, members of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) voted on Tuesday to change the definition of marriage in the church’s
constitution to include same-sex marriage.
The final approval
by a majority of the church’s 171 regional bodies, known as presbyteries,
enshrines a change recommended last year by the church’s General Assembly. The vote amends the church’s constitution to broaden
marriage from being between “a man and a woman” to “two people, traditionally a
man and a woman.”
The Presbytery of
the Palisades, meeting in Fair Lawn, N.J., put the ratification count over the
top on Tuesday on a voice vote. With many presbyteries still left to vote, the
tally late Tuesday stood at 87 presbyteries in favor, 41 against and one tied.
“Finally, the
church in its constitutional documents fully recognizes that the love of gays
and lesbian couples is worth celebrating in the faith community,” said the Rev.
Brian D. Ellison, executive director of the Covenant
Network of Presbyterians,
which advocates gay inclusion in the church. “There is still disagreement, and
I don’t mean to minimize that, but I think we are learning that we can disagree
and still be church together.”
The church, with
about 1.8 million members, is the largest of the nation’s Presbyterian
denominations, but it has been losing congregations and individual members as
it has moved to the left theologically over the past several years. There was a
wave of departures in and after 2011, when the presbyteries ratified a decision
to ordain gays and lesbians as pastors, elders and deacons, and that may have
cleared the way for Tuesday’s vote.
With many
conservative Presbyterians who were active in the church now gone, as well as
the larger cultural shift toward acceptance of same-sex marriage, the decisive vote moved quickly toward approval,
according to those on both sides of the divide.
Plenty of moderates
and conservatives, however, have chosen to stay within the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), one of the
nation’s historic mainline Protestant denominations, which has its headquarters
in Louisville, Ky. Ministers who object will not be required to perform a
same-sex marriage.
Paul Detterman,
national director of The Fellowship Community, a group of conservatives who
have stayed in the church, said: “Our objection to the passage of the marriage
amendment is in no way, shape or form anti-gay. It is in no way intended as
anything but concern that the church is capitulating to the culture and is
misrepresenting the message of Scripture.”
He added, “We
definitely will see another wave, a sizable wave, of conservative folks
leaving,” but said he and others were staying because “this conversation is
dreadfully important to be a part of.”
Other religious denominations that have officially
decided to permit their clergy
to perform same-sex marriages include the Episcopal Church, the United Church
of Christ, the Quakers, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Churches and,
in Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements. The Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America left it open for individual ministers to decide.
“I don’t see any
further large mainline denominations making the same move,” said Alan Wisdom, a
Presbyterian and the interim editor of Theology Matters, a journal for
conservative Protestants.
The United Methodist
Church, with about 12.8 million members, has been debating same-sex marriage
for years, but it includes a growing membership in Africa, where there is
little acceptance of gay relationships.
The Presbyterians’
decision on Tuesday will put an end to the ecclesiastical prosecutions and
convictions in the last few decades of ministers who broke church law by
conducting same-sex marriages.
“Some of us are
calling it liberation day,” said the Rev. William Blake Spencer, pastor of
Ocean Heights Presbyterian Church in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., who is gay and
voted with his presbytery on Tuesday. “It will be the last L.G.B.T.Q. issue
that we debate and fight about, and finally our welcome comes without a ‘but’
or an ‘if.’”
Correction: March 18, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the
membership of the United Methodist Church. It is 7.3 million in the United
States and another 5.5 million worldwide, not 5.5 million total.
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