PC(USA) continues to struggle with
gay-ordination issue
Complaint is filed against Don Stroud in Baltimore,
and objections are raised to ordination of Katie Morrison in Redwoods
Presbytery.
by Alexa Smith, Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE - 2-October-2001 [posted here 10-5-01] - In separate cases on
opposite coasts of the country, presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church
(USA) are examining gay candidates for the ministry, assessing their
suitability for ordination.
In the East, the Presbytery of Baltimore is organizing
an investigative committee to consider a complaint
filed against the Rev. Don Stroud, an openly gay minister who was
ordained in 1975 in North Carolina in what was then Mecklenburg
Presbytery.
In the West, some members of Redwoods Presbytery in
Northern California are seeking to prevent the ordination of Katie
Morrison, a lesbian whose ordination was approved by the presbytery on
Sept. 21. Morrison reportedly has said that she will abide by the
church's constitutional requirement that unmarried clergy in the PC(USA)
be "chaste."
In the Baltimore case, a member of the Presbytery of
Los Ranchos in Southern California alleges that Stroud has willfully and
deliberately violated his ordination vows and a clause (G-6.0106b) in
the constitution that says unmarried clergy may not be sexually active.
The complaint also charges Stroud with heresy.
The PC(USA) prohibits marriage between gay people, lay
or clergy.
The complaint against Stroud was brought to the
presbytery's Sept. 26 meeting after Stroud waived his right of
confidentiality in what could become a disciplinary action against him.
Stroud is a minister of outreach and reconciliation for a group named
That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS), which is working to eliminate
barriers to gays' and lesbians' full participation in the PC(USA).
In the northern California case, Redwoods presbyters
who were on the losing end of the 90-37 vote to permit Morrison's
ordination are charging that the process was illegitimate. They say they
suspect that Morrison's understanding of "chastity" is
different from the church's historical position that forbids any sexual
activity between unmarried partners.
People unhappy about the outcome of the vote are
raising questions about the thoroughness of the examination. They
question whether the examiners in Morrison's case probed deeply enough
on sexual matters, beginning with the Committee on Preparation for
Ministry (the first church body to confer with ministerial candidates)
and continuing through the floor debate during the presbytery meeting.
The PC(USA)'s Permanent Judicial Commission - the
denomination's highest court - is already considering a case from
Stamford, CT, in which a gay elder says he considers himself chaste
"in God's eyes," although he lives with another man. That case
turns on the question of the investigatory responsibility of a church
that wants to ordain a member, but has questions about whether the
candidate's sexual life meets denominational requirements.
The hearing in the Stamford case, which was scheduled
for the week of Sept. 11 in Chicago, was postponed because of the terror
attacks in New York City and Washington and has not been rescheduled.
Morrison's presbytery voted to approve her ordination
as a "field organizer" for More Light Presbyterians (MLP), an
advocacy network for gay and lesbian Presbyterians. She would be MLP's
second field organizer, joining Michael Adee, an elder at First
Presbyterian Church in Santa Fe, NM. Mitzi Henderson, a co-moderator of
the organization, said it gets so many calls for speakers that it needs
another organizer to help congregations learn to provide pastoral care
to gays and lesbians and their families and to assist in dialogues about
homosexuality - a subject that has been at the center of PC(USA)
politics for 30 years.
The constitutional provision at the center of this
debate, G-6.0106b, is itself under debate. The provision requires
"fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman
or chastity in singleness" for church officers.
The church's 173 presbyteries will vote over the next
several months to retain or strike it. In the latter event, the PC(USA)
would leave it to congregations and presbyteries to examine candidates
and decide on their suitability for ordained ministry. Those who favor
striking G-6.0106b say that would merely restore the church's historical
process.
G-6.0106b was put into the constitution in 1997. An
attempt to delete it was decisively rejected by the presbyteries the
following year.
One day after Baltimore Presbytery announced that it
intended to put an investigating committee together to consider the
allegations against Stroud, the Rev. Jane Spahr, a Presbyterian lesbian
activist, voiced deep dismay.
"People say things like this: 'What's the matter
with people like Don Stroud and Jane Spahr and Katie Morrison? What's
the matter with them?' Well, that's the wrong question," Spahr
said. "The question is, 'What's the matter with a church that keeps
excluding its very own children and grandchildren who want to serve?'
"What do people think we are?" asked Spahr,
who formed TAMFS to combat stereotyping and work for the inclusion of
gay and lesbian Presbyterians in ministerial roles. "This gets down
to the mythology of who people think we are. These are good people with
tremendous faith in God, and who love Jesus. It is the scapegoating of
victims of oppression."
Stroud, who was in parish ministry until he began
working with TAMFS in 1999, said he's not surprised that someone is
trying to oust him. After he served as his presbytery's commissioner to
the General Assembly, he said, he got a letter by certified mail
outlining his alleged offenses and demanding that he respond by Aug. 31
or face disciplinary action.
Stroud said the letter was signed, but he doesn't know
the writer. (In disciplinary cases, names are kept confidential; Stroud
waived his confidentiality.)
The Rev. Charles Forbes, the stated clerk of Baltimore
Presbytery, said an investigating committee will be named in November.
According to a TAMFS release, that committee could
decide against filing formal charges. If charges are filed, there could
be a number of possible outcomes: Stroud could be acquitted; rebuked;
rebuked with supervision and rehabilitation; temporarily excluded from
office; or defrocked.
"You just have to take that chance when you're
working to counter the present constitutional barriers," Stroud
said of his decision to give up confidentiality. "This is something
you go into with your eyes wide open ... but not that many times have
More Light Presbyterians or TAMFS (faced disciplinary action.)"
The complaint does not explain the charge of heresy
lodged against Stroud.
In the Redwoods Presbytery case, events - who asked
what of whom - are muddled.
The executive presbyter, the Rev. Brian Tippen, said
nobody side-stepped the issue of chastity during the examination. In
fact, she said, the subject was broached during the presbytery meeting:
"Someone asked Katie directly whether she intended to live in
compliance with G-6.0106.b, and her answer was yes. The presbytery, at
the conclusion of the exam, voted 90-37 to approve her for ordination.
It seems fairly straightforward to me. … The only issue with G-60106.b
is whether a person agrees to live in compliance."
Lucky Phelps, Redwoods' stated clerk, backed up
Tippen's account, describing the process as "careful" at every
turn. "This was not taken lightly," she said - adding that,
after the vote, three protests were filed and three dissents were noted.
However, the Rev. Ed Hart, of Napa, CA, a member of
the Committee on Ministry, insisted that neither the Committee on
Preparation for Ministry nor the Committee on Ministry did its job. In
the minutes of the Aug. 23 meeting, he said, Phelps is reported to have
described the decision as an "irregularity." Hart did not
attend that meeting. (The Presbyterian News Service has not seen the
minutes.)
Hart also said that, when the question of
"chastity" was posed to Morrison on the presbytery floor, the
Rev. Chandler Stokes, the chairman of the Committee on Ministry, said
the matter had been resolved in committee.
"I thought that Ed had asked me … whether we
had inquired specifically with Katie whether she was in compliance with
(G-6.0106b)," said Stokes. "I said I didn't recall, and (that)
I wasn't present for all of the meetings." Stokes said another
committee member responded to Hart's question.
Stokes said the committee process in Morrison's case
"seemed to be no different from our usual process," and
Morrison met "all of the usual criteria." He added: "We
don't ask our heterosexual candidates about their fidelity in marriage,
or investigate their sexual behavior. I think to do so in this case
would clearly have been discriminatory."
Morrison's ordination has been scheduled for Oct. 21.
However, Hart said he may seek a stay from the Synod of the Pacific's
Permanent Judicial Commission to block the service.
The Rev. Larry Ballenger, a member of the presbytery,
said he agrees with Hart and believes there is some "re-defining of
chastity going on." Ballenger went on: "It is terrible that in
the church we've come to this point - where we can't take what someone
says at face value, when we have reason to suspect otherwise."
Morrison did not respond to numerous interview
requests from The Presbyterian News Service.
