Presbyterian court: Gays can't be ordained

The top court in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has issued an unexpectedly early and decisive ruling upholding the Louisville-based denomination’s ban on ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians.

The court said this week the ban remains firmly in place despite a 2006 policy change that had appeared to allow churches and presbyteries, or regional governing bodies, some flexibility in enforcing the ban.

The Presbyterian constitution allows “no departures” from its requirement that candidates for minister, elder or deacon live either in “fidelity” in a heterosexual marriage or in “chastity,” according to the ruling from the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission.

“The freedom of conscience granted in (the Presbyterian constitution) allows candidates to express disagreement with the wording or meaning of provisions of the constitution, but does not permit disobedience to those behavioral standards,” the court ruled. “The fidelity and chastity provision may only be changed by a constitutional amendment. Until that occurs, individual candidates, officers, examining and governing bodies must adhere to it.”

The ruling settles debate over the interpretation of a controversial new policy adopted by the denomination’s legislative General Assembly in 2006 that sought a compromise that would break the denomination’s impasse over homosexuality.

The 2006 compromise measure retained the denomination’s ban on ordaining non-celibate gays and lesbians, which was added to its constitution in the late 1990s.

But it also revived a historic Presbyterian practice in which a candidate for ordination could declare a “scruple” or reservation about a particular point of Presbyterian doctrine or practice. Presbyterian court: Gays can't be ordained
The Courier-Journal