Do I take what I can get, or do I wait for something better that might never happen?
As a Presbyterian lesbian, I'm thrilled at the progress our denomination is making toward treating gays and lesbians properly. At the same time, I'm a little concerned at the wording of the proposed change. The ordination standards we're trying to change are worthwhile standards, I believe. My only problem with them is the way G.60106b specifies that it must be marriage between a man and a woman. Not only is the "man and woman" part troublesome, but obviously most states still don't allow gay marriage. Why can we not simply change it to "chastity in singleness or fidelity in a committed monogamous relationship between two people"? It's a bit of a mouthful, true, but at least it keeps to the heart of the standard. A relationship between two people is a blessed union that should honor God with its sanctity. Dropping any mention of that from the standards seems to be overkill. But if it's the best we can get for now, I'll take it. There are plenty of gay and lesbian seminary graduates that are called by God to serve as ministers but are unable to be ordained. The sooner they are free to serve in their full capacity as ordained ministers, the better.
On the bright side, the new language of the ordination standards puts more authority into the hands of local presbyteries rather than in rulebooks. I'm usually a fan of decentralization.
~M.J.G.
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To get what you really want, why spend all the time and effort trying to change a denomination that has voted against ordination of homosexual 4 times during the past 14 years? Why not simply go out and form a new Presbyterian denominations similar to what the Evangelical Presbysterians, Presbyterian church in America, Reformed Presbyterian church and other smaller denominations have already done?
What is going to happen is that when homosexual ordination is granted, the church will split and possibly form another Presbyterian denomination or people that are Presbyterians who disagree with the gay & lesbian liifestyle will simply either transfer to other denominaitons or simply quit altogether. Creating your own Presbyterian denomination would certain avoid a split in the present church.