Tired and running short on time, the committee held off voting on any recommendations until its next meeting, Jan. 22-25 in Louisville. The committee plans to post its preliminary report on the Web site of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) soon and will accept comments from the broader church on that draft report through Nov. 15.
Despite its unanimous vote, the committee’s discussions and the report itself reflect the difficulty of knowing where the denomination should stand at a time when the PC(USA) has defined Christian marriage as being strictly between a man and a woman – but an increasing number of states have legalized same-gender marriages.
The draft report the committee passed states that its members have not been able to reach consensus on divisive issues involving same-gender partnerships, but they have found unity in the belief they hold in Jesus Christ.
“We see no agreement in the laws around this issue, on any level of government, and these very laws have changed even as we have embarked on this study,” the preliminary report states. “We have reached no consensus on a faithful response to the changing nature of civil marriage.”
The preliminary report states elsewhere: “What is the place of covenanted, same-gender partnerships in the Christian community? The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) cannot agree.”
Before deciding not to vote on recommendations until the January meeting, the committee did pass out copies of proposed recommendations — proposals that may or may not still be on the table when January rolls around.
The recommendations that the committee discussed for about an hour, but did not vote on, stated that:
– The 2010 General Assembly of the PC(USA) should reaffirm the denomination’s definition of Christian marriage as being between one man and one woman — and should advise PC(USA) ministers and commissioned lay pastors not to officiate at same-gender marriages in states where such marriages are legal. Instead, ministers could encourage such couples “to have their marriages solemnized by an authorized civil agent and to offer to such couples an appropriate religious service,” the recommendation states.
– That the assembly should ask the PC(USA)’s Office of Theology and Worship to examine the provision in the denomination’s constitution that “marriage is a civil contract between a woman and a man,” in light of the laws passed in some states permitting marriage of same-gender couples, and to report back to the assembly in 2012.
– The 2010 assembly should reaffirm the actions of previous assemblies urging Presbyterians to support actions to extend to same-gender couples and their families the same rights and privileges that married couples enjoy.
– The 2010 assembly should commend to the church a covenant included in the committee’s draft report, and encourage the PC(USA) to use that covenant in its ongoing discussions involving difficult issues.
Several committee members described that last recommendation — a covenant called “Those Whom Christ Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate” — as the most important of the recommendations they were considering. The covenant states in part that Presbyterians should promise “to love one another even when we disagree, and to commit ourselves to the reconciliation of any broken relationship we have with one another.”
Some committee members raised concerns that waiting until January to pass their recommendations won’t give presbyteries much time to pass overtures in response. But committee chair Jim Szeyller, a pastor from Charlotte, pointed out that the committee already has received and considered more than a thousand comments. “We gave folks their chance,” Szeyller said – and now the committee is posting its preliminary report online for Presbyterians to study, as well.
Despite the unanimous outcome, this was a long and arduous meeting for the committee, filled both with times of grace and moments of tension and tears. Steve Salyards, a scientist from California, referred to the marathon work sessions as what felt like “the month of the last two days.”
Some members described the process the committee has used to communicate with one another between meetings as “awful” — including e-mails sometimes worded more sharply than intended and confusion about how suggestions to one another on draft documents should be submitted and considered.
But the committee began each day by singing hymns, and ended each evening with a time of worship.
Late on the evening of Sept. 16, committee members also offered some of their initial thoughts on the proposed recommendations.
Bill Teng, a pastor from Alexandria, Va., said he has “some very serious concerns” about the inconsistency of a recommendation that tells Presbyterian ministers not to marry same-gender couples, but also says they can conduct “appropriate religious services” for gay or lesbian couples who go to civil authorities to marry.
“I do have a conscience problem” with encouraging same-gender couples, said Tracie Mayes Stewart, a pastor from North Carolina.
The committee discussed the possibility of Presbyterian pastors being brought up on charges related to same-gender weddings — both cases brought against ministers who perform such weddings in states where same-gender marriage is legal and those who might refuse to perform such weddings out of conscience.
Margaret Aymer Oget, an associate professor of New Testament at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, said she would consider supporting language to say that Presbyterian ministers should be allowed to follow their conscience and their understanding of what the Bible says regarding same-gender marriages, without fear of litigation.
A case in the Presbyterian church courts already has been brought against Jean Southard, who performed a wedding for two women active in her congregation in Massachusetts, a state where same-sex marriage is legal. In August, the Permanent Judicial Commission in Boston Presbytery ruled in Southard’s favor, although an appeal of that decision is still possible (see the news story, “Judicial Commission of Boston Presbytery rules performing same-sex wedding allowed” on this Web site.)
Some suggested that pastors who refuse to marry same-sex couples could face discrimination lawsuits as well. But the PC(USA) already allows its ministers to decline to marry a couple when the minister thinks the marriage is unwise.
Tony De La Rosa, a lawyer from California, told the committee it’s likely that presbyteries will present at least one overture to the 2010 General Assembly asking for a change in the definition of Christian marriage as being “a covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship.”
And the changes in state laws raise questions, the committee acknowledged, that some say the PC(USA) should try to answer.
Among them: “What is forbearance?” asked Clay Allard, a minister from Dallas. “What is the limit of forbearance? How far can I bend until I break?”
The report also discusses the question of the interplay between ministers and the state when it comes to marrying people.
“We acknowledge that current law, in which clergy act as agents of the state, is a source of confusion,” the draft report states. “On behalf of the state, ministers are granted the authority to officiate at marriages, and yet no authority is granted them to dissolve such unions. Some argue the church should relinquish its state-sanctioned power to marry. Others feel that, even in confusion, it should be retained to further the cause of the gospel.”
The draft report also states that “civil unions cannot adequately substitute for marriage,” either for those who support same-gender marriage or for those who oppose it.
Those who would permit same-gender marriages don’t only want additional federal or state benefits, the draft report concludes. “The struggle is not just to be able to visit in hospitals, share health care, or custody of children. Same-gender couples desire to belong, to be accepted in the larger society.”
But those who say marriage should only be between a man and a woman “see the compromise of civil unions as a dangerous and myopic redefinition of marriage” that loses important dimensions of marriage, the draft report states.
