Finally this afternoon, the report of the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry came to the plenary session of the Assembly. The committee recommended the approval of the overture from Western Reserve presbytery, which would have made all Authoritative Interpretations (AIs) relating to homosexuality not mandatory as criteria for determining the fitness of candidates for ordination. A minority report would simply have expressed support for the Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church.

During the debate on the two reports, various effort were made to gain consideration of other overtures which would have removed G-6.0106b (the "fidelity and chastity" provision) from the Book of Order, or would have gone further in removing the AIs from the Book of Order.

In the crucial vote to make the minority report into the main motion, 259 commissioners voted Yes, and 255 voted No. The final vote to approve the minority report - expressing support for the work of the Task Force and doing nothing else - was 297 to 218.

Almost immediately after the vote, the afternoon session was adjourned. At the invitation of Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, those who felt the need to lament their loss quietly left the Convention Center and gathered in a plaza across the street. Others were invited to join them in a show of solidarity and support.

As the circle grew and grew, including perhaps 350 people, folks joined in a few quiet songs, a few remarks were made, and the Moderator offered his own supportive comments, urging the people still excluded to "bear their crosses" and continue the struggle for justice.

The Rev. Jane Spahr invited people to encourage their churches to light a candle and keep it burning for the coming two years, until the next General Assembly, in a quiet vigil for justice.

Marco Grimaldo led the gathering in a closing litany, and the event drew slowly to a close. Many remained in the plaza for another half hour or more, talking, weeping, embracing, grieving for yet another loss, and preparing, perhaps, to begin the struggle again.

Many people lined up to speak to the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry on Monday afternoon, June 28, as the committee began consideration of a number of overtures dealing with the ban on ordination of LGBT Presbyterians.

More Light Presbyterians has the full text of three statements on its website.  They offer three very personal - and very profound - sets of reasons for ending the Presbyterian Church's ban on ordination of LGBT members. We offer one more point of view.

The Rev. John Harris, who has been elected as a new member-at-large of the Witherspoon Society executive committee, was one of many people to testify in the open hearing of the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry on Monday afternoon.

Here's what he said in the 2 minutes allotted to each speaker:

I am John Harris. I am a member of the Presbytery of West Virginia, where I serve as the half-time pastor of a small church and half-time Presbytery staff. One of my responsibilities as Presbytery staff is to work with Pastor Nominating Committees.

Not long ago I was meeting with a PNC and a minister whom the PNC was interested in nominating. The church is small congregation, barely able to meet the Presbyterian minimum salary, and so far off the beaten path that their pool of potential pastors is limited. The PNC want to nominate an ordained minister to serve as pastor on a part-time basis, and I was present at this meeting with the PNC and the minister to help them explore a part-time call.

After the PNC and the minister agreed on the terms of call, the minister, out of a sense of integrity, came out to the PNC.

After the minister left the meeting I continued meeting with the PNC, which still wanted to nominate the minister but was afraid, too, because that did not want to risk possible judicial action against the minister, the church, or the presbytery. Members of the PNC said they suspected the minister was homosexual and in a committed relationship, but they were not sure until they were told directly by the minister himself.

I support the Twin Cities overture and urge you to recommend it to the full Assembly as a response to all the overtures related to authoritative interpretations. I support the Twin Cities overture, 04-49, because it would remove the barriers that G-6.0106b, the Definitive Guidance, and existing Authoritative Interpretations have place before faithful Presbyterians like this PNC in West Virginia. They prevent them from nominating otherwise qualified ministers of their choosing.

Removal of these barriers would help us solve the pastor shortage in the Presbytery of West Virginia.

Do you have thoughts and experiences
that would lead to advocate for the removal
of G-6.0106b from the Presbyterian Book of Order?

By a vote of 35 to 30, the General Assembly's Committee on Church Orders and Ministry decided to recommend that the Assembly remove all authoritative interpretations (AIs) banning the ordination of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the Presbyterian Church. The committee approved an overture from the Presbytery of Western Reserve which proposes this change, thus rejecting four other overtures, one of which would have removed both the AIs and G-6.0106b, which does not mention homosexuality but requires "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness." One of the other overtures would have redefined a "covenant relationship" to include committed same-sex relationships, while the others offered variants on the "delete B" or the "remove the AIs options.

The other overtures were hardly discussed, because a motion introduced at the beginning of the business session (following a more freely structured discussion) focused on the Western Reserve proposal.

Prior to the decisive vote, the committee rejected (by 34 to 30) a motion to take no action on the five overtures, instead calling on the church to pray and to support the work of the work of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church and its call for church-wide dialogue.

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219^th General Assembly have now been acted upon by the presbyteries, confirming most of them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We provided resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

Our three areas of primary interest have been:

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PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

Got more blogs to recommend?