In making this case, quotations that were said to be from A.I. were given by three speakers and referred to by a fourth, beginning with the Moderator of the Church Orders committee. The “untold story” of this Plenary debate is that none of these quotations given were actually from A.I., even though the speakers claimed that they were. None of them.
This immediate issue – the source of the repeated quotations – is not an issue requiring subtle interpretation. It is a factual issue: for whatever reason, none of the quotations repeatedly given by those advocating its abandonment were actually from A.I. They were from a 1978 study paper by Rev. Byron Shafer on homosexuality, a document with no policy status whatsoever in the PCUSA.
During the debate, there was considerable confusion on the floor. For starters, the Church Orders committee had failed to give the complete text of A.I. to the commissioners – omitting the final page of A.I. from the 1978 minutes (page 6). Secondly, the quotations given by the Majority Report were a surprise to commissioners. One commissioner turned to me and said, “I don’t remember that from A.I., where are they getting it from?”
In the heat of the moment, both sides were sticking with the “prepared” speeches of the debate, and so this surprise tactic was not being addressed. I was the only speaker who was able to address it, with great brevity in the 90 second speech time. With lines of 10 people at each microphone, I had to develop an impromptu speech without returning to my seat. I could not confirm whether the quotations were from A.I. But I did know the material well enough to know that the quotations were taken completely out of context, given a meaning nearly opposite to their meaning in context.
For the speakers on the Plenary floor, the key and memorable phrase from this quotation is that homosexual persons are referred to as “maladjusted, incompetent, unreliable, irreligious and promiscuous.” After this, speakers spoke about how antiquated and offensive this language is. Fair enough. But these negative stereotypes are not the viewpoint of the paper, but a description of the homophobic tendencies of society which the paper condemns. In context, Shafer is very clear that he does not share these “negative stereotypes” of homosexual persons.
A homosexual person may in fact be well-adjusted or maladjusted, competent or incompetent, reliable or unreliable, religious or irreligious, promiscuous or unpromiscuous; but once she or he is labeled ‘homosexual,’ society-at-large loses sight of these and other individualities of attribute. It expects ‘homosexual’ persons to be maladjusted, incompetent, unreliable, irreligious, and promiscuous; and it assumes that they are. (Repeated Plenary quotation in italics)
Thus, precisely when a paper is calling upon the church to move away from society’s negative stereotypes of homosexuals, commissioners on the floor of Plenary were claiming that the paper was promoting those stereotypes. The meaning of Shafer’s paper was twisted to be its opposite. But of course the greatest problem with all of this is that Shafer’s paper is not and never was considered Definitive Guidance or an Authoritative Interpretation.
Moreover, one should consider – what does the A.I. actually say about the issues raised in the quotations?
The A.I. is very clear:
“The Christian community can neither condone nor participate in the widespread contempt for homosexual persons that prevails in our general culture. Indeed, beyond this, it must do everything in its power to prevent society from continuing to hate, harass, and oppress them.” The A.I. calls upon members and agencies of the PCUSA to “work to eliminate prejudicial and stereotypical images of homosexual persons in the public media.” For “there can be no place within the Christian faith for the response to homosexual persons of mingled contempt, hatred, and fear that is called homophobia.”
This is what the A.I. actually says – a clear condemnation of precisely the sort of homosexual stereotyping that commissioners on the floor of Plenary claimed that it promoted.
The great irony is that the majority report – which claimed that A.I. is so dangerous – could not even find the right document to argue against. If A.I. is so offensive, why was it completely overlooked for quotations from the side trying to defeat it? Unfortunately, the fact that the incomplete text of A.I. was given to commissioners and that the oral quotations of A.I. were not actually from A.I. leaves commissioners like myself with the following impression: confusion was part of the strategy of the majority report. With confusion about what documents we were voting on, and what the content of those documents were, the natural tendency would be to think that the A.I. themselves are confusing. But that does not follow. The A.I. themselves are not confusing. They only become confusing when commissioners are fed false and incomplete information about their contents.
Unfortunately, there was confusion on the floor due to the doubly-false quotations given repeatedly by advocates of the majority report. Indeed, never in the course of the 216th General Assembly (or its subsequent reporting by the media) did the falsity of these quotations come to light. Whatever happened to “ethics” on the floor of Plenary? The purpose of debate is to advocate for or against a particular proposal, not to falsify and deceive commissioners about the content of the item being voted upon. It is an embarrassment to the cause of the Covenant Network and similar affinity groups to make its advocates into speakers of falsehood. I hope and pray that affinity groups on all sides of this important issue will make it their job to clarify rather than obfuscate, to tell the truth rather than speak falsehood. Send your comment on this report to The Outlook.
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