The letter of the law was cast in virtue, but the spirit of the law was one of contention. "Those called to office in the church are to lead a life of obedience" to Scripture and church doctrine, read the proposed amendment to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and "among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." For six months, the 171 presbyteries of the 2.7 million-member church battled over these lines, one by one voting for or against them in a process tallied on the Internet, with the amendment sometimes winning or losing by just a single vote. What was at stake was not mere chastity but the ordination of a people once shunned by the church. By last week, however, the amendment won its 86th presbytery--a simple majority--and sexually active gays and lesbians were forbidden to serve as clergy, elders and deacons.
The champions of the amendment contend they set the same standard for homosexuals and heterosexuals: no sex outside wedlock. But its opponents point out a double standard: the church does not allow monogamous, same-sex couples to marry. "I feel like my church has slapped me in the face," says Scott Anderson, co-moderator of Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. "This is an action rooted in fear and not in love." Anderson had been pastor of the Bethany Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, California, until members of his congregation, opposed to some of his policies, "outed" him in 1990. He had been closeted till then and involved in a seven-year relationship with another man, which ended prior to the rupture with his congregation. He left the clergy but remained a Presbyterian layman, pressing for change. Now executive director of the California Council of Churches, Anderson was buoyed for a while by allies across the country, even as liberal and conservative Presbyterians threatened secession over the issue. Then the slow-motion vote took place.
Now that the church's earlier policy against gays has been replaced by one with constitutional force, Anderson predicts some gays and lesbians will leave the church, since the amendment states that you should not hold office if "refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin." He also says the church will find itself in a hypocritical bind if it chooses to enforce "chastity" and not the 17th century bans on divorce and working on the Sabbath. Anderson, however, is not abandoning his church: "I'm in this for the long haul," even if takes "another 20 or 30 years" to defeat the other side.